In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied south Lebanon. After 18 years of brutal occupation, Israel suffered a historic defeat, the first in the Zionist entity’s history, and was forced to withdraw, humiliated. Six years later, in July 2006, Israel waged another war against Lebanon. For 33 days, it sought to occupy parts of South Lebanon — and for 33 days, it failed. Despite repeated attempts to re-establish its control over the land, Israel was once again forced to retreat, suffering the second defeat in its entire history, both times on the same stubborn soil of south Lebanon.

Over the past month, Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed their intention to reoccupy south Lebanon. For us, the future seems to be uncertain and indeed much of it is. One thing is certain, however — they will be defeated. Forty-two years ago, in a roundtable journal organized by al-Tariq magazine, Hassan Hamdan, known as Mahdi Amel — a Marxist philosopher and militant from south Lebanon — warned against acquiescence and pessimism of the intellect and will. With unwavering intellectual clarity, even amid war, and unyielding political militancy, even in seemingly desperate times, Amel articulated the guiding principle that continues to shape Lebanon’s present and future as a bastion of resistance — a node that both haunts and breaks Israel.

Ahmad Elamine, a Lebanese-British doctor working in Psychiatry in London, translates Mahdi Amel’s “The Path of Revolution in Lebanon is Our Universe” (al-Tariq, 1982).

Thousands of displaced families seek refuge along the Corniche of Beirut and in Martyrs’ Square on Saturday, September 28. Lebanon’s Minister of Industry George Bouchikian estimates that an additional half a million people fled Dahieh over the weekend, after Israel repeatedly bombed different neighborhoods in the southern suburbs from Friday at noon until Saturday at dawn. The government estimates the total number of displaced around the country at over one million. Thousands, if not more, are left on the street as designated shelters are too sparse for the growing scale of the displacement. The government’s response has been wildly inadequate. Most shelters are severely under-equipped, with mattresses few and far between, and food, water, and medicine in short supply. Over 100,000 people have left Lebanon for Syria amid ongoing Israeli bombardment, according to the head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. 

After last week’s pager and two-way radio attacks, as people in Lebanon wondered whether it was safe to even call their loved ones, pro-Israel social media accounts erupted with a celebration of maiming: grisly jokes and memes gloated over severed limbs, exploding phones, and supposedly neutered men. To put the pager attacks in the context of Israel’s ongoing practice of maiming, The Public Source reached out to Jasbir K. Puar, a professor of Global Race Studies at the University of British Columbia and author of the award-winning book “The Right To Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability.”

We wanted to hear her thoughts on the pager and radio attacks, in which thousands of people lost hands and eyes in a split second. How might these attacks complicate the typical framing of liberal humanitarianism, which presents such attacks as more “humane” than outright killing? How does this new spectacle of horror fit into Israel’s “humane” image, which has long been central to its justification for the right to maim?

Read Puar’s response in Jasbir Puar on The Pager Attacks and the Right to Maim

With the sun barely rising, Israel began its heaviest bombardment campaign to date on more than 1,600 locations in the South, Nabatieh, Beqaa, and Baalbek-Hermel governorates, indiscriminately striking homes, urban squares, and countryside. In the evening, Israel carried out a strike in Dahieh, Beirut’s southern suburbs, reportedly targeting Hezbollah commander Ali Karaki. In under 24 hours, Israel killed 558 people and injured 1,835, according to the Public Health Ministry. It was, according to the New York Times, “one of the most intense air raids in contemporary warfare.”

In response, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets towards Haifa, striking the Ramat David base and weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which were hit the day before. It also struck the Ein Zeitim base of the Israeli Northern Corps with dozens of rockets.

On the deadliest day in decades, families fled towards Beirut to escape with their lives, mattresses stacked on the roofs of their cars, carrying whatever belongings they could rescue. Thousands were trapped in hours-long traffic jams along the congested highways from the South to the capital.

By the end of day, hundreds of thousands were displaced. Many had no time to pack when the killing spree began, and all they took with them were the clothes on their backs, wallets, and whatever small comforts they could grab.

Excerpt from an interview with Democracy Now! on Israel’s aggressive airstrikes across Lebanon and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands:

“If the question is, ‘Where is Israel attacking right now?’ It's been fairly indiscriminate. We've seen that cities and towns, including the heart of Nabatieh was bombed; Ghazieh, next to Saida, also the square was bombed. So we're talking about attacks that are happening in the thick of the towns — densely populated areas, not just in disparate places. And you know, at the heart of this is an attempt to manufacture consent and try to portray most Southernees as Hezbollah operatives; their homes as essentially depots and caches.”

Watch the full interview on Democracy Now!, Israel Bombs Lebanon After Blowing Up Pagers in "Act of Mass Mutilation." Is Ground Invasion Next?

Fists of resolve rise in the air and handfuls of rice fall on the coffin. Under the banner, “we will not abandon Palestine,” mourners, in their hundreds, if not thousands, assemble for the funeral of senior Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil, on Sunday, September 22, 2024 in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburb.

The martyr had been part of the resistance since its founding in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Through the ‘80s and ‘90s, Aqil was a field commander in the struggle to liberate the South, and in 2006, he lent his long experience to foil Israel’s attempt to re-invade and occupy. Decades of his life were dedicated to training fighters and ensuring readiness and continuity for the resistance. In 2006, he formed Hezbollah’s elite unit, the Radwan Force, which he led until his martyrdom. On September 20, Israel assassinated him for honoring a principled, military commitment to the resistance in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine.

In the same attack that afternoon, Israel killed at least 31 people and injured 68, according to the Public Health Ministry. An F-35 struck two apartment buildings as families gathered for lunch or returned home from work or school.

View more images in this photo blog by Marwan Bou Haidar.

As the Zionist state and its supporters employ maiming and killing as their primary tactics, people in Lebanon have risen up more than ever in defiance of these tactics. Palestinian nurses in Lebanon are offering free healthcare to people injured in the two massacres. Palestinians and Lebanese are donating blood. Some were so affected by the brutality of the attack that they were ready to donate one of their eyes or kidneys to the wounded; one person wrote on Facebook that he was looking to donate “to console those who have lost their eyes, to fulfill some of what is owed to those who sacrificed for us.” A campaign of people offering their organs swept social media and inundated the head of the Association for Organ Donations with calls to fill out organ donation forms.

Read more in researcher Nisrine Chaer’s “Affirmations of Life” Confront Israel’s “Right to Kill”

Excerpt from an interview with Democracy Now! on the wave of explosions in electronic devices booby-trapped by Israel:

The events of the past two days have caused a lot of panic, a lot of fear, and, to a large extent, paranoia, which was aided by a disinformation campaign, to a large extent. Over the past couple of days, or at least yesterday, for the most part, people were receiving messages over different WhatsApp groups, on social media platforms, that any and every electronic device can be detonated by the Israelis. So people were scared of using their cellphones. People were hearing that even kitchen appliances were exploding, solar panels, laptops and so on. Thankfully, for the most part, this turned out to be a disinformation campaign, and it did not really— was not really materializing on the ground as was being reported across different channels. That may be the only solace from the events of the past couple of days, where we saw civilian areas and civilians being targeted.

This has been widely reported in the Western press as a sophisticated campaign that targeted alleged Hezbollah operatives, but the reality is that, for the most part, these explosions were occurring in civilian areas, in vegetable markets and in the supermarket and the funeral, as you mentioned. And that’s on one hand, but also, on the other, not everybody who’s carrying these pagers and these walkie-talkies is a Hezbollah fighter, nor were any of them on the combat field or on the frontlines in the southern part of the country. It’s very important to note that Hezbollah is not just a resistance group or a militant group. Hezbollah is also a political party here in Lebanon that is represented in Parliament. And Hezbollah also runs and operates several large civil institutions. So, we saw medical personnel and healthcare workers being killed and injured and maimed by these explosions. We saw children. We saw even the Iranian diplomat. So this was a indiscriminate attack that made the Lebanese population feel that anyone can be targeted, at any point, anywhere in the country.

Watch the full interview on Democracy Now!, Lebanon: 37 Dead, 3,400+ Injured in Wave of Explosions in Electronic Devices Booby-Trapped by Israel