August 17, 2024
At least
thirteen people, including a mother and her two children, were massacred in an
Israeli airstrike in the Nabatieh Governorate in southern Lebanon early on 17
August, while five more were injured.
A view of an industrial area destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, in
Wadi al-Kfour, Nabatieh province, south Lebanon, August 17, 2024.
(Photo credit: AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
The Lebanese
Ministry of Health reported that the casualties and injuries resulted from an
air raid carried out by Israeli fighter jets on the Wadi al-Kfour village in
the Nabatieh region.
Lebanon’s
National News Agency (NNA) reported that the strike targeted a cement factory
and that most of the victims were Syrian refugees and workers.
The killings
came as Israel conducted reconnaissance and drone flights across southern
Lebanon, most notably over the cities and villages of Tyre, Bazourieh, and
Qadmus.
Fear of an
all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah that could reach both Tel Aviv and
Beirut remains high.
On 14 August,
Hezbollah struck several Israeli army sites near Lebanon’s southern border as
Washington’s top envoy, Amos Hochstein, visited the country for talks with
Lebanese officials.
Hochstein's
visit came under the pretext of avoiding the breakout of all-out war in Lebanon
and the region, as Israel and the US are currently in a state of high
anticipation for Hezbollah and Iran’s retaliation to the Israeli assassinations
in Beirut and Tehran last month.
Ismail Haniyeh,
Hamas’ political bureau chief and lead negotiator, was killed by Israel in
Tehran on 31 July, one day after an Israeli strike on Beirut that killed top
Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and several civilians, including children.
Washington and
other western nations have since been scrambling to stymie Hezbllah and Iran’s
promise retaliatory response, while the US vows at the same time to defend
Israel in the case of all-out war.
Saturday's
strike on Lebanon came after ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel in Doha
paused on Friday with negotiators due to meet again next week.
Mark Smith, the head of the Africa
Programmes and Expertise Department and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and
Development Office (FCDO), formally resigned on 16 August, citing London's
continued arms sales to Israel.
In a letter titled “FCDO complicity
in War Crimes,” Smith – an expert on the legality of UK arms sales – laments
ending his long diplomatic career “in the knowledge that this Department may be
complicit in War Crimes.”
“As [a] former penholder on the arms
exports licensing assessment in [the Middle East and North Africa Department]
MENAD, I am a subject matter expert in the domain of armed sales policy. Each
day we witness clear and unquestionable examples of War Crimes and breaches of
International Humanitarian Law in Gaza perpetrated by the State of Israel,”
Smith writes.
“Senior members of the Israeli
government and military have expressed open genocidal intent, Israeli soldiers
take videos, deliberately burning destroying, and looting civilian property and
openly admit to the rape and torture of prisoners,” the letter continues.
He also highlights that Israel's
wholesale destruction of Gaza's infrastructure, their continued restrictions on
the entry of humanitarian aid, plus attacks on ambulances, schools, and
hospitals all constitute war crimes.
“There is no justification for the
UK's continued arms sales to Israel yet somehow it continues. I have raised
this at every level in the organization including through an official
whistle-blowing investigation and received nothing more than ‘thank you we have
noted your concerns.’”
Smith also criticizes UK authorities
for misrepresenting London's arms export licensing regimes as “robust and
transparent,” saying, “This is the opposite of the truth.”
Although falling well behind
Israel's top suppliers of deadly armament – the US and Germany – the UK granted
more than 100 weapon export licenses to Tel Aviv between 7 October and the end
of May.
Between 2008 and the end of 2023,
London granted export licenses for arms deals to Israel worth 576 million
pounds ($740m).
Earlier this month, British news
outlets reported that the new Labour government “[appears] to have suspended
the processing of arms export licenses for sales to Israel pending the
completion of a wider government review into the issue.”
The suspension is reportedly part of
a review “of the risk of weapons sales to Israel in light of allegations of
breaches of humanitarian law in the Gaza conflict.”
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