Israel’s relentless bombardment of Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon is no defensive reflex but a strategic doctrine. Targeting commanders, infrastructures, and supply routes reflects a long-term policy of attrition, aimed at crippling Hezbollah’s military capacity while keeping Lebanon politically constrained and diplomatically cornered. Farcical 

This is not war; it is siege warfare by another name.

For Tel Aviv, the present setup is perfect. Hezbollah is pounded time and again, but Lebanon as a state is unable to retaliate. The Lebanese Armed Forces are factionalized, underfinanced, and politically hobbled. The Israeli military can act with impunity while the international community does little more than pay lip service.

The theatre of broken promises

For Benjamin Netanyahu, this is perfection. The so-called ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon have become little more than intervals between bombardments—pauses that allow Israel to wreak havoc with its targeting systems. No one retaliates. Washington remains conspicuously silent. And Netanyahu appears before his domestic audience as Mr. Tough Guy: the uncompromising defender of Israeli security, the man who makes no apologies and offers no concessions.

The recent Israeli strike on the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon laid bare the cynicism of this arrangement. On Tuesday, 18 November, an Israeli drone struck a car near a mosque in the camp, killing at least 13 people, most of them children and students. Israel claimed it was targeting a Hamas training compound; Hamas countered that the strike hit a sports playground used by camp residents. The Lebanese Health Ministry confirmed that ambulances continued transporting wounded to nearby hospitals hours after the attack. It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since the ceasefire supposedly took effect one year ago.

This was not an isolated incident. Just the very next day, on Wednesday, the Israeli military issued eviction notices to residents of four villages in southern Lebanon: Deir Kifa, Chehour, Tayr Falsay, and Aynata, ordering them out in a matter of minutes before Israeli fighter jets leveled targeted buildings. The warnings, which were posted on social........

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