Israeli warplanes carpet-bombed Nabatieh city in southern Lebanon, targeting several buildings and sites, on Wednesday, October 16. Nabatieh Municipality building was among the targets, resulting in the killing of the city’s mayor and five other key officials, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. A medical facility near the municipality building was also targeted by an Israeli airstrike, killing at least two doctors.
The Public Health Emergency Operations Center (PHEOC), affiliated with the Lebanese Health Ministry, issued a statement on Wednesday, noting that rescue teams were still working “to clear the rubble at the site, attempting to locate survivors or additional victims.”
Nabatieh’s Mayor, Ahmad Kheil, was reportedly holding a daily crisis management meeting in the municipal building to coordinate aid deliveries, when it was struck. Therefore, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of “deliberately targeting the municipal meeting.”
Since Israel commenced its genocidal war on Gaza and expanded it to other parts of West Asia, particularly Lebanon, it has actively sought to target vital healthcare facilities, aid distribution centers, and mosques and schools sheltering displaced people. As it stepped up its aggression on Lebanon during the last few months, Israel has deployed the same tactic by targeting Lebanese civilian sites designated to provide people affected by the war with emergency aid.
Lebanon and “Greater Israel”
Dr. Mads Gilbert, Norwegian physician and political activist, active as a medical solidarity worker with Palestinians since 1981, mostly in the Gaza Strip, over the last 20 years, was interviewed by Al Jazeera English last May. During the interview, Dr. Gilbert described Israel’s attacks on such facilities as a “campaign to eradicate the Palestinian society and any sign of Palestinian structures in civilian life.”
“This is the politics of eradicating the indigenous people to take their lands,” he said.
Dr. Gilbert’s analysis brings to mind Israel’s ambitions to achieve the “Greater Israel” project, especially after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sparked controversy last week due to his remarks in the documentary “In Israel: Ministers of Chaos.” When Smotrich was asked during the documentary about Israel’s potential expansion, he suggested that Israel’s future borders would “extend beyond the Jordan River.”
The “Greater Israel” project is an expansionist project that reflects the vision of the founding father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, of a Jewish state that “stretches from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”
Amidst the escalating Israeli aggression on Lebanon, a video went viral on social media networks last week, showing an Israeli settler father reading a book to his little son. The book titled “Alon and Lebanon” was authored by Amos Azariah, who is a lecturer at Ariel University, and reportedly published by the extremist settler group Uri Tzafon. It is based on a fictional story for kids promoting Israeli territorial claims over Lebanon.
A few months ago, an image of an Israeli Occupation Forces’ soldier wearing a military uniform holding the badge of the “Greater Israel” map during operations in Gaza was circulated online, provoking outrage in Arab countries.
In January 2024, Israeli writer and politician Avi Lipkin, said during a TV interview, “Eventually, our borders will extend from Lebanon, the greatest desert, which is Saudi Arabia, and then from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates.”
“Those on the other side of the Euphrates are our Kurdish friends… So, we have the Mediterranean Sea behind us, the Kurds in front of us, and Lebanon, which really needs Israel’s protective umbrella. After that, I believe we will take Mecca, Medina, and Mount Sinai,” Lipkin added.
