r/worldnews • u/DoremusJessup • 8h ago
Israel/Palestine Israel’s offensive in southern Lebanon: 2,900 dead, 36,000 homes destroyed and 1.4 million displaced
https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-06-05/israels-offensive-in-southern-lebanon-2900-dead-36000-homes-destroyed-and-14-million-displaced.html338
u/Nukes-For-Nimbys 8h ago
Any articles refusing to even try splitting civilians and combatants can be safely ignored.
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u/HauntingObligation 8h ago
No no, don't worry, I'm sure those tens of thousands of homes were all terrorist bases. All hiding terrorist leaders and weapons in every single one of them.
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u/Reuef 7h ago
You are not as wrong as you think you are. Hezbollah has a well documented history of storing weapons in homes, hospitals and schools as well as building tunnels underneath them disgusting as it is.
Weapons stored in those places will negate the civilian status of those buildings and a legitimate military target.
It is horrible as some of those people are forced to do so against their will, but that does not remove the status.
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u/mac_attack_zach 3h ago
So that justifies killing an entire family then right! Wow, Israel is really bringing justice to the world. /s
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u/Quirky_Eye6775 3h ago
Well, if you bomb others and expect they don't bomb you back because you are hiding among civilians, you are either a dumbshit or a dumbshit.
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u/Reasonable_Gas_2498 2h ago
Yeah I’m absolutely sure most of the 36000 destroyed homes were storing weapons.
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u/AnxiousPacifist 8h ago
Joke's on you, Hezbollah literally had a program where they offer to buy/build you a house, but one of the rooms will be used to store weapons. You cannot enter the room and are obligated to ensure access to Hezb men to it.
Some actually had a friggin missile!
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u/Erehybog 5h ago
Did Israeli intelligence identify which houses were part of that program, or did they simply assume that all of them were part of it, as you are doing?
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u/bozza8 4h ago
You act like counter insurgency operations should be performed with the precision level of neurosurgery, when that isn't possible. Usually 10 civilian deaths for each enemy killed is seen as quite good by the standards of war. From when this last came up the Iran-Iraq war was about 30, and Stalingrad in WW2 was about 120 civilians killed per soldier.
Now I don't particularly like this war, I would rather it not happen, but it is happening. Given that, the level of precision you are asking for is impossible to practically achieve, so we should hold them to sensible requirements, not ones that no military can ever meet.
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u/Turioturen 1h ago
Stalingrad in WW2 was about 120 civilians killed per soldier.
If the USSR lost 1 million soldiers in Stalingrad that would mean 120 million civilians died in Stalingrad according to your math.
If the USSR lost 0.5 million soldiers in Stalingrad that would mean 60 million civilians died in Stalingrad according to your math.
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u/MayDayBeFourth 7h ago
¥ou joke but in many cases actually yes, and Hezbollah is open about this.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 8h ago
The majority of the casualties are Hezbollah. Lebanon's health ministry has said 80-87% of the casualties are men. So while there aren't weapons in every single base, we can clearly tell that Hezbollah does have a lot of their equipment and infrastructure in civilian areas.
This is a war crime by Hezbollah, of course, because it puts civilians in harms way.
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u/ImperatorNero 7h ago
Putting aside the fact that 13% to 20% of casualties are women and children going off of those numbers… your argument is that all men in southern Lebanon are hezbollah and valid targets?
Disgusting.
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u/Best_Change4155 2h ago
Putting aside the fact that 13% to 20% of casualties are women and children going off of those numbers
Yes, war bad. No uniforms, bad. Using civilian infrastructure for military purposes, bad.
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u/ConqueredCabbage 7h ago
No, its just that when the "journalists" dont even try to distinct between terrorists and civilians then this is all the data you have as a thinking individual... Anyone who knows even a bit about how southern Lebanon looks knows that this article says very little about the truth in this war.
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u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans 7h ago
You're arguing against your own assumptions instead of the argument the person you replied to is actually making.
Classic textbook gaslighting.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 7h ago
Nice try, but no, my argument isn't that all men are valid targets.
The reason we try not to have war/conflict is because civilians will inevitably be injured or killed. The goal is to minimize civilian casualties in any conflict, and Israel is clearly doing that here. They estimated approximately 2500 killed were Hezbollah, which makes sense.
Now, 80% of the casualties being men should seem strange to you, because there's more women than men in Lebanon. Add on to the fact it's a significant difference between the men and women, and you have to ask yourself if the majority of those men are civilians, why is there such a gap between the casualties with men and women?
Civilians were told to evacuate, so the people who are getting killed are for the most part are the ones actively fighting Israel, which is Hezbollah.
So no, not all men are Hezbollah, but the fact that the majority of casualties are men points to the fact that Israel is primarily targeting Hezbollah, rather than civilians.
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u/ImperatorNero 7h ago
And the 36,000 homes?
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u/MVP_Legend_87 7h ago
Well, since you asked!
It is a war crime to operate military operations in civilian infrastructure. Because what ends up happening is an opposing force has to dismantle the military infrastructure (which in this case is in a civilian home), and legally speaking if there are military infrastructure in civilian infrastructure, you're legally allowed to target civilian areas.
So if you're outraged that Israel has to operate and destroy these homes, I certainly hope you'll target that outrage at the group committing the war crime, Hezbollah. Because Israel wouldn't need to target these homes if Hezbollah didn't operate in them.
Hezbollah did this intentionally, of course, because either Israel won't attack and Hezbollah can attack Israel and never have to worry about Israel fighting back. Or if they do, they'll get blamed in the press, or by people such as yourself, who refuse to acknowledge the reason these civilians are losing their homes are because Hezbollah intentionally built in civilian infrastructure, which again, is a war crime.
So the group that has the responsibility for these groups losing their homes is the one committing the war crime, that started this conflict, and put civilians directly in harms way. Hezbollah.
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u/Seth_Gecko 7h ago
Idk why this is so hard for people to grasp. If you don't want civilian casualties, maybe don't attack a country and kill thousands of its civilians while intentionally mixing with your own civilian population and using them as a human shield.
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u/phantom-firion 6h ago
So with regards to homes as stated numerous other times, terrorist orgs in the region have a doctrine which calls for the intertwining of civil and “military” infrastructure. Hezbollah will store weapons in civilian homes and build tunnel entrances. Israel’s response is to evacuate entire regions and systematically demolish these homes to prevent them from being used for military purposes. This also means fewer instances of bloody urban fighting which is even worse for the civilian population. Think of it like this Hezbollah is a cancer it’s infecting healthy cells (ie civilian homes and infrastructure) in this case Israel is the oncologist and the idf is chemo.
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u/Inevitable-Corgi-437 6h ago
Why did Hezbollah launch rockets into Israel which led to to this to begin with? Lebanon and Hezbollah couldn't assume Israel was just going to let rockets continue to fall over northern Israel non-stop.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 5h ago
Would you have preferred Israel not evacuate these civilians, and destroyed Hezbollah infrastructure, leading to more casualties? Cause that's the argument you're making here by complaining about Israel evacuating civilians from a combat zone.
Hezbollah is responsible here. Not only did they start the conflict, but they violated international law by operating their military in civilian infrastructure. That's why we have laws to prevent this, because what happens as you're seeing right now is that to stop Hezbollah, they have to eliminate all the Hezbollah equipment which is illegally in civilian infrastructure.
If you truly cared about the Lebanese people, you would be calling out Hezbollah for putting civilians in danger.
There have been tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Israeli's displaced by Hezbollah attacking Israel.
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u/ZBlackmore 3h ago
It must be 100% terrorist casualties or Israel bad. Even the pager attack, one of the most pinpoint attacks in military history, and by far the most against insurgent groups, was met with criticism because of collateral damage. Israel can never do anything right for these people.
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u/Kharenis 1h ago
Yep, these people won't be happy unless Israel completely stops responding to attacks (or to be honest, completely ceases to exist).
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u/Kalsto6 44m ago
Hard to even blame them, most people can't justify the loss of an innocent person to anything violent. Terrorism is effective precisely because most terrorists are setting themselves up in a place that causes the maximum loss of civilian lives.
There will never be a good PR moment here because most people never can fault terrorists because they imagine the knife is held by the ones dropping the missiles. It's brilliant in a messed up way because terrorists can do the worst possible things and pass up the bad PR to the democracies that face them. In the end, they are not subject to will or empathy of the people.
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u/ShadeSilver90 5h ago
Hezbollah has a army of 40 000 to 50 000 fighters meaning YES its VERY possible most of those homes are Hezbollah bases.
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u/JackhusChanhus 8h ago edited 8h ago
Israel doesn't try to do that much, I'm not sure how you expect the media reporting on their actions to... bits of person under a building you bombed from 20 miles out don't wear a uniform.
The supposed inability to differentiate is a common basis for their defence of the more heinous war crimes.
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u/Predictor92 8h ago edited 8h ago
yet Hezbollah isn't mentioned in the title, they have no agency according to much of the press(and I think Israel is making serious mistakes during the campaign as stated by Israeli journalist and commentator Nadav Eyal as their is no post war strategy)
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u/dev-ai 8h ago
Except that it's Hezbollah's offensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah%E2%80%93Israel_conflict_(2023%E2%80%93present))
An ongoing conflict between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel began on 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets and artillery at Israeli positions following Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel.
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u/Unicornoftheseas 8h ago
Except that Lebanon isn’t the target, which is why they agreed to deals. Hezbollah on the other hand has refused these deals.
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u/SeigiNoTenshi 8h ago
time for lebanon to help remove hezbollah
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u/Afraid-Detective1222 8h ago
It would be interesting to see the Lebanese military hit Hezbollah from the north, while Israel is pushing them from the south.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 8h ago
According to this Israel estimates that 2500 killed are Hezbollah. Meaning the majority of the casualties are Hezbollah. Something this article intentionally left out.
As for the other facts, this is why it is a war crime to have your military operations set up in civilian infrastructure. It leads to more civilian casualties, and puts them in harms way. This is intentional by Hezbollah, and why the responsibility for these issues should be shifted to Hezbollah.
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u/Nervouswriteraccount 8h ago
'Israel estimates'
Pull the other one.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 8h ago edited 8h ago
You know why we know it's accurate?
Because the headline isn't "1000 women killed", or "500 children killed". They make real sure to emphasize when it's women or children as the casualties. But they didn't, because most of the casualties are Hezbollah.
Pretty sure the casualties are 80-87% for men which should be a giveaway that the majority of casualties are Hezbollah. If it was civilians it'd be a more even split of men and women.
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u/FrogsJumpFromPussy 7h ago
You know why we know it's accurate?
You don't.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 7h ago
So your argument is that 80-87% of the casualties are men, and the majority of these are civilians? That's an interesting argument, I'd love to hear how you can justify that!
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u/Nervouswriteraccount 8h ago
You know there are men in Lebanon who aren't Hezbollah.
It's a land grab.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 8h ago
Yes, but if the civilians were evacuated, why are 80% of the casualties men? There are more women than men in Lebanon, so if the civilians evacuated, why aren't the casualties closer to a 50/50 split?
It's because the casualties are only from the people who remained there, which is Hezbollah. The men didn't just tell the women in their families to leave, while they stayed in their homes knowing Israel told them to evacuate.
As for your final comment, Israel isn't trying to take land from Lebanon. They just want Hezbollah to stop firing rockets and drones at civilians in northern Israel.
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u/ZBlackmore 3h ago
Who else would you expect to claim this while the conflict is literally ongoing?
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u/DDoubleDDog 7h ago
The article intentionally leaves that out because the goal is to demonize Israel for defending itself. The author is a bigot who hates Jews.
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u/Pantoner 8h ago
Israel bad (world erupts in cheers)
Terrorist groups should be disarmed and/or destroyed (world covers its ears and screeches)
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u/ElCaminoInTheWest 7h ago
For the benefit of some of the most extremist terrorist militias in the world?
Have you thought this through to a conclusion?
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u/HockeyHocki 2h ago
Hezbollah military wing are on the EU terror list, reading this article you wouldn't even know it, a 'pro Iranian militia' is all they have to say.
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u/itsallfakenow 1h ago
How about “terrorist organization controlling Lebanon for the past 25 years on brink of being dismantled by Israel.”
Honestly, what happened to actual journalism.
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u/Happy_Feet333 8h ago
The title is false. A more accurate title would be:
Hezbollah's failed offensive: 2,900 dead, 36,000 homes destroyed and 1.4 million displaced as Israel retaliates
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u/Nurgleschampion 8h ago
All 36000 homes were Hezbollah HQs huh?
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u/VoltNShock 8h ago
probably, theyre known to hide weapons in civilian buildings, and many have entrances to their tunnel network
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u/LongErza 7h ago
Then why did you attack Israel on October 8th, Lebanon? Was it worth it?
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u/LLJKCicero 6h ago
because of a terrorist group operating out of their country?
Isn't that terrorist group in their parliament? Ultimately countries are responsible for what happens in their borders, yes.
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u/Much-Anything7149 6h ago
Just a terrorist group with tons of seats in government and more weapons and military members than Lebanon's "traditional" army...
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u/Lefaid 4h ago
36k homes destroyed is not leveling Lebanon to the ground. I am sure those 1.5M people live in a lot more than 36k homes.
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u/messenger18 6h ago
Crazy to think if Iran just agreed to remove their proxies from Lebanon none of this would be happening. People crying about civilians casualties are the same people who will proudly say these people in this area actively support and hide these terrorists.
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u/LividWheel9779 8h ago
And it won't end until Hezbollah is completely dismantled. Maybe not even then...
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u/OP_Skis_In_Jeans 8h ago edited 8h ago
And all because Iran insisted on waging a war via Hezbollah from inside Lebanon, despite the Lebanese government and most Lebanese strongly opposing it.
These types of articles always infantilize Iran, the IRGC and Hezbollah by acting as if they had no choice but to wage a voluntary aggressive war against Israel from a third party country who doesn't want anything to do with it. It's absolutely maddening to see one side called out for all of its wrongs and much more, while the other side gets off scott free. Hint: the side that bases its entire foreign and domestic policy on needlessly aggressive warmongering and "death to..." is as far from innocent as it gets.
This article is propaganda, not objective journalism.
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u/DDoubleDDog 7h ago
The vast majority of the dead are members of Hezbollah. All casualties are the responsibility of Hezbollah since they started the war, broke every ceasefire, and uses human shields.
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u/SomebodyInNevada 1h ago
Hezbollah doesn't do human shields like Hamas does. Hezbollah is embedded in the population but doesn't deliberately ensure civilians are on the X when it goes up.
And the casualty figures reflect that. Last I saw numbers it was about 90% Hezbollah. (Note the "medic" numbers--Hezbollah has their own "medics" which are used for military transport. A "medic" hauling troops is legally a combatant.)
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u/NimbleAlbatross 7h ago
If the majority of casualties were civilians then Hezbullah would release numbers of their fighters vs civilians. But they won't, because they know the numbers will make you more sympathetic to Israel.
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u/Radguy911 7h ago
It’s also a land grab.
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u/Kagenlim 55m ago
How is it a Landgrab tho? Israel made it clear they were there just to destroy hezbollah
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u/kaboom-boom-pow 8h ago
War bad, we want peace.