Israel's systematic destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure has completely disrupted normal life in the south of the country, as it was supposed to do. Devastated roads and communications mean the free movement of goods and people has come to a halt. Shop shelves have emptied rapidly, power and water supplies have been disrupted and hundreds of thousands of people are facing a humanitarian disaster of massive proportions.
The world is aware of this looming horror, but until the Israeli onslaught ceases, getting food and medicines to beleaguered areas is virtually impossible. The UN High Commission for Refugees has warned such behavior toward a civilian population could be construed as a war crime. Along with countries like France, the UN has been seeking an arrangement with the Israelis to guarantee the safe passage of relief convoys into the south of the country. But the Olmert government is clearly not yet in the mood to allow anything to interfere with its campaign of aerial terror.
Spotter planes, very probably backed up by intelligence supplied by the United States spy satellites, constantly patrol Lebanon’s skies. If it looks like a rocket launcher, then it is a rocket launcher and Israeli warplanes will quickly be vectored to take it out. Thus the first attack on a Christian area in the north of Beirut on Wednesday when jets blew up two construction trucks, mounting pipes and equipment for pumping concrete into foundations.
The neighborhood was immediately plunged into panic since it had been assumed that the Israelis would have confined their attacks on Beirut to the Muslim south of the capital. The truth however is that the aggressors do not care what damage they do to whom. There are no hiding places in the Lebanon this week, as testified by the vast exodus of terrified foreigners.
The Israeli war machine has only a few more days left to wreak as much destruction as it can, not just on Hezbollah but on the rest of the Lebanese. It has doubtless been calculated that any humanitarian relief effort can wait a while longer while the south of the country in particular lies prostrate beneath the deadly air campaign. The protests of the outside world are preferable to the public relations disaster of taking out part of a relief convoy because spies had told their masters in Tel Aviv that it was actually carrying logistics for Hezbollah.
Once it has to cease its depredations in the north, Israel will be able to turn its attention back to Gaza and the Hamas government, which is diplomatically isolated. The world is used to seeing the humiliation and brutalization of the Palestinians and the Israeli government will expect far fewer protests.
Olmert of course has been insisting that it is Hezbollah and not the Lebanese as a whole who are the targets. He has a simple way of proving this. Israeli warplanes could immediately start dropping food and medicines to communities isolated by the destruction of roads and bridges.
