TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Israel's second front with Lebanon has begun
Netanyahu's government has thrust Israel into a second front with Hezbollah in Lebanon, leaving the paramilitary group with little choice but to retaliate, thereby achieving its goal of a prolonged, regional war.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Beirut residents gather on Sept. 20, 2024 at a building targeted by an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. (AFP/-)
W
ar is said to be the mother of all evils. From conventional to nuclear warfare, there isn't one where the focus has not involved increasing the number of casualties, or the kill ratio. Every modern war has been about extracting the maximum amount of damage.
It is precisely due to how far wars can go that the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Additional Protocols are deemed as the "law of war", otherwise known in the field of political science as international humanitarian law (IHL), to proscribe the limits on what is legal or illegal.
Due to the conflict-prone nature of the Middle East, the trajectory can take a completely different path, however. With or without IHL in the background, wars can become totally vile and ugly, with all adversaries enmeshed in all forms of transgressions that fall completely outside the legal realm.
By detonating the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah operatives on Sept. 17 and 18, respectively, Israel has triggered an avalanche of violence between state and substate actors.
At the time of writing, Lebanon had become the "second phase" of Israel's military operations, which was widened to include the "relocation of 60,000 of its citizens" back to Tel Aviv's northern sector. The latter has come under regular bombardment by Hezbollah since Oct. 8, 2023.
Dubbed "the devices war", the second wave of Israel's attack on Hezbollah, especially in its stronghold in Bekaa Valley in Southern Lebanon, has become completely destructive.
Pressure is now mounting on Hezbollah to retaliate against Israel's armed reprisal on each and every attack from the air and invariably on the ground. In 2000, Hezbollah forced Israel to leave its territory completely. The two sides then became entangled in more military tit for tat in 2006, when Hezbollah’s missiles kept landing in northern Israel.
