Lebanon in state of apprehension as Israel mulls major military attack

Lebanon was holding its breath on Monday in anticipation of a major Israeli response to a deadly air strike blamed on Hezbollah that killed 12 children from a Druze community in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights.

Western diplomats have been urging Israel to show restraint, while the UN peacekeeping force that mans the Israel-Lebanon border, known as the ‘Blue Line’, has called on all parties to exercise "maximum restraint" to avert a wider conflagration.

Throughout Monday, there was a flurry of urgent diplomatic activity aimed at defusing tensions. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy spoke with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to renew the call for all parties to exercise restraint and prevent escalation.

According to local media, Lebanese foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib held meetings with Hezbollah official Ammar Moussawi, while it was reported that top US envoy Amos Hochstein had also been on the phone to Beirut.

International officials are eager to ensure the nearly ten-month tit-for-tat attacks that have characterised fighting between Israel and the Iran-aligned Hezbollah does not spiral into an all-out-war.

Southern Lebanon has been facing near-daily Israeli air strikes since 8 October as it wages war with the Lebanese militant group.

The strikes have killed nearly 500 people inside Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah members, but also including dozens of civilians. Nearly 100,000 residents from the border villages have been displaced, while homes and acres of agricultural land destroyed.

Fears of retaliation

But now there are fears that Israel’s long-threatened offensive into Lebanon could materialise after twelve people were killed by a missile attack in the Druze town Majdal Shams in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.

The assault, for which Hezbollah denied responsibility, sparked outrage from the Israeli government and prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring forward his return from Washington, where he had been holding meetings with US officials.

Israel's security cabinet met for an emergency session on Sunday evening and authorised Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant to decide when and how to retaliate for the strike, leaving Lebanon on tenterhooks.

A Hezbollah official told AP on Monday that it had started moving some of its "smart precision-guided missiles" in response to the threats. The anonymous official said the group's stance had not changed; it does not want a full-blown war with Israel, but if war breaks out it will fight without limits.

Throughout the past nine months, senior Israeli officials have been clear about their desire to launch a major offensive into Lebanon to push Hezbollah’s presence back from the border area to "north of the Litani River".

Just last week, the head of the air force said preparations for a possible war with Hezbollah had been completed, while last month Gallant said his military is capable of taking Lebanon “back to the stone age”.

A weakened Lebanese state

The possibility of war comes at a bad time for Lebanon. The country’s government is weakened by its caretaker status and the presidential seat has been empty since October 2022. A severe shortage of state funds, ballooning debt and a depleted currency means public services would struggle to stem a collapse in the event of a disaster.

It is believed that Lebanon only has enough supplies of food, water and medicine for 45 days, according to local media reports.

Health officials have called for blood donors ahead of possible casualties and war-induced injuries which would strain the beleaguered health system.

On Monday foreign embassies, including the US and India, issued further advice for citizens in Lebanon, which is often regarded as a gauge for the likelihood of an attack. Lebanon’s national carrier Middle East Airlines and German airline Lufthansa cancelled some flights to and from Beirut, ramping up fears for those in Lebanon.

The US embassy in Beirut issued advice to its citizens to “leave before crisis begins” describing the situation as “complex and quickly changing”.

The warning from Israel’s closest ally has been taken as a possible sign of a large attack and as such amplifies the worries of the Lebanese.

Where a strike might take place is at the centre of speculation. The cancellation of flights has prompted fears of a 2006 repeat when Israel bombed Beirut’s airport.

Its position in the southern suburbs of the city, that is mainly home to Shia Muslims, Hezbollah supporters and the party’s offices, means it would be a heavy blow.

'State of numbness'

The instability of the past ten months and accompanying anxiety has sown a feeling of numbness among Lebanese, according to Michelle Eid, an editor and socio-economic development researcher from the coastal city of Byblos.

Eid told The New Arab that while the attacks of the weekend and Israel's latest threat has left people feeling "a little more heightened," she said that herself and her friends and family have reached a "state of numbness".

"Any noise we hear outside, any sudden movement to a certain extent awakens severe anxiety in us," Eid said, referring to the sonic booms triggered by Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier in Lebanese airspace, or the buzz of drones. "But because these are feelings we’ve had for a prolonged amount of time, they’ve become the new normal."

“We’re in a constant state of anxiety and hyper stimulation waiting for something to happen," the 24-year-old who works in Beirut said, adding that Israel's regular breaching of Lebanon's skies is a reminder that at "any given moment" an attack could happen.

She lamented that this feeling of precariousness has become normalised in the Lebanese psyche, and said there has not been one moment of "complete and utter peace" since the clashes began last October.

Beirut resident and retired dentist William Khairallah told The New Arab that those who were most fearful of an all-out war travelled out of the country in the early days of the clashes and are still abroad.

For Khairallah, the fear of war is symptomatic of his country, which he said is dogged by sectarianism and its geographical position in the middle of the "crisis crescent".