‘Are we in August? Yes. We are in August.’ — Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982.
Armageddon means “Hill of Megiddo” which is a Palestinian town mentioned only once in the bible. In 1917, at the Jaffa gate of the old town, General Allenby declared this on behalf of the British government “every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest of customary place of prayer, of whatsoever form of the three religions, will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred.” Needless to say he reneged on his promise.
Israel’s assassinations provoke war
Overnight Israel assassinated resistance leaders in Beirut and in Teheran. Israeli drones bombed the town of Haret Hreik (Arabic: حارة حريك). They killed at least 2 children, 3 women, and injured another 72 civilians. In the strike Israel claims to have killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr( now confirmed by Hezbollah). His town is a mixed Shia and Maronite Christian municipality, in the Dahieh suburbs, south of Beirut in Lebanon. Once an agricultural village, Haret Hreik lost its rural identity due to the wave of refugees from Palestine and Southern Lebanon bordering expansionist Israel. They settled in the town and made it another urban neighborhood of Dahieh (also spelt Dahiya).
Meanwhile Israel has assassinated the political leader of Hamas, Ishmail Haniya, in his residence in Teheran. Both these murders are severe provocation by Israel supported by the United States administration. Israel is killing both the people along with their political and military leadership. Support for the resistance is growing.
Eliminating the Negotiator
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On the same day, the United States struck against Hezbollah in Iraq. Reuters reports: “Iraqi police and medical sources said the strike inside a base south of Baghdad used by Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) killed four members of the group that contains several Iran-aligned armed militias, and wounded four others.”
Haret Hreik is located northeast of the Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport and north of the towns of Laylake and Bourj el-Barajneh, a large Palestinian refugee camp, and just west of Hadath and south of Chyah.
I wrote about Black Thursday on 13 July 2006: “Israel has bombed the Beirut International Airport. In truth, Israel has declared another war on the Lebanese people.” Israeli military said this about bombing the International Airport in Beirut: “the goal of the attack was to shut down air traffic in and out of the Lebanese capital.”
Israel’s Dahiya doctrine
Haret Hreik, the town, is the headquarters of the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah. Israeli warplanes also destroyed civilian homes of this town in July 2006. The Israeli General Gadi Eizenkot, commander of the IDF’s northern front, had this to say about the destruction of these homes:
What happened in the Dahieh quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which shots will be fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases. […] This isn’t a suggestion. It’s a plan that has already been authorized. […] Every one of the Shiite villages is a military site, with headquarters, an intelligence center, and a communications center. Dozens of rockets are buried in houses, basements, attics, and the village is run by Hezbollah men. In each village, according to its size, there are dozens of active members, the local residents, and alongside them fighters from outside, and everything is prepared and planned both for a defensive battle and for firing missiles at Israel. […] Hezbollah understands well that its fire from within villages will lead to their destruction. Before Nasrallah gives the order to fire at Israel, he will need to think 30 times if he wants to destroy his support base in the villages. This is not a theoretical matter for him. The possibility of harm to the population is the main factor restraining Nasrallah, and the reason for the quiet in the last two years.*
On the 19th of July 2024 the International Court of Justice outlawed these kinds of attacks declaring that Israel had no right to commit such war crimes. The occupier has no right of self defence. It is a contradiction in terms. Support for such attacks are regularly articulated by Israeli ministers in the Knesset, by some rabbis, and some American spokespeople for Israel.
Eventually Hezbollah drove Israeli occupation forces out of Southern Lebanon. This had little or nothing to do with international law. The butcher of Beirut Ariel Sharon had contempt for international law when he enabled the slaughter of over 3,000 Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla, nearby Dahieh in 1982.
Now in July 2024, the Israelis have begun their unlawful massacres again in Lebanon, nearly 20 years after Israel’s disastrous war against Lebanese people in 2006. Israel is putting up the same lies that it did nearly 20 years ago. Firstly, Israel used as an excuse the deaths of mainly school kids in a Druze village in the Golan Heights. Israel invaded the Golan Heights (then part of Syria) in 1967 and annexed the territory in 1981. Israel claims that Hezbollah bombed the Druze Village. There is no reason to believe that is the case yet western media present it as fact. Israel claims that it bombed Dahieh in Beirut in retaliation, to kill the commander of Hezbollah Israel claims was responsible for the murder of the school kids in the village in the Golan Heights. Hezbollah denies it is responsible for the bombing and says its commander is still alive.
Only a few weeks before the assassination of Ismail Haniya, Israeli troops assassinated most of his family in Gaza. On a daily basis, Israel threatens and kills journalists in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Air Force Commander Tomer Bar said: This is another message to our enemy in the entire Middle East – we will act against anyone who plans to harm the citizens of the State of Israel, there is no point that is too far for us to attack.”
Ian Curr
31 July 2024
*Published by Yedioth Ahronoth in October 2008
According to the iranian revolutionary guard, the Hamas leader Ishmail Haniyeh was killed by a short-range missile (RPG) fired from near his guest house in Teheran. Israeli operatives (aided by US intelligence) have breached Iranian security measures.
Iran does not possess nuclear weapons, but Israel does. It would take several months for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb, and then they would have to work out a way of delivering it.
Israel may not use nuclear devices in Palestine because it is faced by armed insurrection within its occupied territories. However, it could use nuclear weapons against Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, or Yemen.
Israel will have the support of the United States and, importantly, US proxy regimes in the region, which include Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
In the April 2024 missile attack, the US made sure Israel’s jets had access to Jordanian airspace and possibly Saudi Arabian airspace. Iran notified Saudi Arabia where and when it was going to attack. Saudi Arabia immediately told the US, who then told the Israelis. All parties knew the attack was coming.
The August missile attack on Israel military targets is most likely to be multi pronged i.e. out of Iran, Lebanon, and perhaps Iraq.
The United States has placed aircraft carriers and destroyers off the coast of Lebanon designed to provide missile defence for Israel.
More facts when they come to hand …
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the estimated global population of 2.3 billion in 1940.
According to the Lancet about the ’37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7. 9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.5 July 2024′
https://www.thelancet.com › fulltext
Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential – The Lancet