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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/us-admits-it-doesnt-want-diplomatic-solution">electronicintifada.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">US admits it doesn't want diplomatic solution
</h1><p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-blog"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability">Rights and Accountability</a></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">5 October 2024</span></span> </p>
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<p>Firefighters work at buildings damaged in Israeli airstrikes in Beirut on 3 October.</p><small>
<span>Xinhua News Agency</span></small>
<p>Israel is embarking on a maximum pressure strategy in Lebanon as it
has done in Gaza, hoping that it will succeed in forcing a surrender by
the resistance in the former where it has failed in the latter.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-04/ty-article/.premium/israel-intensifies-strikes-on-beiruts-hezbollah-stronghold-in-attempt-to-force-agreement/00000192-574a-d2cc-a5d7-f7ff26e80000">According to</a> Amos Harel, an analyst for Israel’s <em>Haaretz</em> newspaper, that country’s intensive airstrikes in Lebanon “looks like a pressure campaign to impose a speedy agreement.”</p>
<p>Israeli media <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-idf-aiming-to-wrap-up-intensive-fighting-in-lebanon-in-2-3-weeks-making-way-for-deals-in-north-and-south/">reported</a>
on Friday that “a senior Israeli security official” told the families
of Israelis being held captive in Gaza that the military will be
fighting in Lebanon for another two or three weeks, with the goal “to
reach a diplomatic agreement with Hizballah that would allow Israel to
secure a hostage deal.”</p>
<p>The strategy is backed by the US, which has provided unconditional
support for Israel during its genocide of the Palestinian people,
particularly in Gaza, and now for its military offensive in Lebanon.
</p>
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller <a href="https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-september-30-2024/">admitted</a>
during a press briefing this week that “we’ve never wanted to see a
diplomatic resolution with Hamas,” saying that the US was “committed to
the destruction” of the Palestinian resistance group.
<p>Miller then said that “I wish that Hamas would come to the table and
work with us on a ceasefire” – the implication being that the only such
agreement that would be accepted by Washington would be the complete
surrender of Hamas.
</p>
There is little reason to think that the US would like to see anything
besides a total capitulation of Hizballah as the result of any supposed
diplomacy process to bring quiet to Israel’s so-called northern front.
<p>Amal Saad, an expert on Hizballah, <a href="https://x.com/amalsaad_lb/status/1842268000986296630">observed</a>
that designation of the Lebanese resistance group as a terror
organization by the US and other Western powers “has effectively
empowered Israel to escalate its campaign of state terrorism in
Lebanon,” replicating in that country the “new model” of brutal warfare
wrought in Gaza.</p>
<p>The proscription of Hizballah has “given Israel the cover to commit
war crimes against the Lebanese people and depopulate Shia areas” of the
country, according to Saad.</p>
<p>It has “also granted Israel the license to potentially carry out
ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Shia community when it inevitably
realizes that its extreme violence is incapable of defeating Hizballah.”</p>
<h2>Ayatollah’s speech</h2>
<p>Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a <a href="https://english.khamenei.ir/news/11146/Palestinian-and-Lebanese-Resistance-pushed-back-Zionist-regime">historic speech</a> on Friday – part of it directed towards the Palestinian and Lebanese people and delivered in Arabic.</p>
<p>But it also delivered a clear message to Tel Aviv and Washington that there will be no defeat of Hamas and Hizballah.
</p>
Khamenei said that the regional resistance will not back down after the martyrdom of its leaders.
<p>While “we are all grieving and mourning” following the death of Hasan
Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hizballah killed in a massive
attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs last week, “our mourning does not
mean being depressed, distressed or losing hope,” Khamenei said.</p>
<p>Unbowed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s thinly veiled <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israels-netanyahu-tells-iranians-regime-change-will-happen-sooner-people-think">threat of regime change</a> in Iran, Khamenei asserted that Israel is in its most precarious position since its establishment.</p>
<p>Operation al-Aqsa Flood – the surprise attack by Hamas on 7 October
2023 – and the year of resistance in Gaza and Lebanon that followed “has
bought the usurping entity to the point where its main concern is to
preserve its existence,” Khamenei said.</p>
<p>Israel has tried to delink its southern and northern fronts by
assassinating Nasrallah and several other founding commanders of
Hizballah. The Lebanese resistance group has vowed to keep firing
missiles and drones towards Israel until it ends its attacks in Gaza.</p>
<p>Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi, who met with Lebanese leaders
in Beirut on Friday, “said Tehran supported efforts for a ceasefire in
Lebanon on the condition it would be backed by Hizballah and
simultaneous with a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip,” <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-heart-beirut-killing-six-2024-10-02/">according to</a> Reuters.</p>
<p>Khamenei’s speech, a rare Friday sermon delivered in public at the
Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque in central Tehran, should leave
little doubt that Iran will not back down from its key role in the
regional resistance.</p>
<p>Iran fired a massive barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel on
Tuesday, forcing the majority of Israel’s population to seek safety in
bomb shelters as military bases were hit in the center of the country in
retaliation for the strikes that killed Nasrallah.</p>
<p>Khamenei emphasized that countries in the region have a shared
interest in defeating the threat posed by Israel, the common enemy of
the Palestinian, Lebanese, Iranian, Yemeni and Syrian peoples.</p>
<p>Unity would lead to the defeat of all enemies, Khamenei said, and
Iran would fulfill its duties with resolve. Acting with neither
hesitation nor haste, Iran will do what is logical, reasonable and
correct, he said.</p>
<p>As if to underscore that the regional resistance would not be cowed, a strike from a drone launched from Iraq <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-04/ty-article/two-israeli-soldiers-killed-in-drone-strike-from-iraq-in-northern-israel/00000192-585a-d76b-a1f6-7f7fd6ff0000">killed two Israeli soldiers</a> and injured 24 others in the Golan Heights – Syrian territory under Israeli military occupation since 1967 – on Thursday.</p>
<p>Israel is poised to strike Iran following the barrage of ballistic
missiles fired from the country on Tuesday. Israeli officials have
reportedly told their US counterparts that the country’s attack will be
“calibrated,” <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/countdown-middle-east-war-region-can-step-back-brink-2024-10-04/">according to</a> Reuters.</p>
<p>Experts interviewed by the news agency said that Israel would likely
avoid highly sensitive targets like oil facilities and nuclear sites so
as to avoid an “escalated Iranian response including the potential
targeting of the oil production sites of US allies in the region.”</p>
<h2>Daily attacks on Gaza shelters</h2>
<p>While Iran and Israel teeter on the precipice of open war, Tel Aviv’s
use of heavy bombs in densely populated areas of Lebanon and Gaza
continue unabated.</p>
<p>At least 29 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Friday, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-bombardment-kills-29-people-gaza-militants-renew-rocket-fire-into-israel-2024-10-04/">according to</a> health authorities in the territory.</p>
<p>On Thursday, the UN human rights office <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/un-human-rights-office-opt-strikes-internally-displaced-persons-shelters-gaza">called</a> on Israel “to immediately end the pattern of strikes in Gaza on buildings acting as shelters” for displaced Palestinians.</p>
<p>“Such attacks have become an almost daily event,” the UN office said,
with at least six schools hit in the previous 72 hours, “resulting in
tens of fatalities, including women and children.”</p>
<p>“In September alone, our office recorded at least 14 schools struck
in Gaza by the Israeli military, and in August one school attack every
other day,” the UN stated.</p>
<p>Such blatant violations of the laws of war, normalized over the past
year in Gaza – during which time nearly 42,000 Palestinians in the
territory are confirmed to have been killed – are now being perpetrated
by Israel in Lebanon.</p>
<p>More than three dozen people were killed and 151 injured in the 24 hours prior, the Lebanese government <a href="https://x.com/ajmubasher/status/1842282225934479456">said</a> on Friday, bringing the total number of fatalities in the country to more than 2,000.</p>
<p>More than 100 children had been killed in Lebanon over the past week and a half, the UN children’s agency UNICEF <a href="https://x.com/UNICEF/status/1842278827868709179">said</a> on Friday.</p>
<p>The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs <a href="https://www.unocha.org/news/todays-top-news-lebanon-occupied-palestinian-territory">said</a>
on Friday that it “remains concerned about the safety and well-being of
civilians as Lebanon experiences a surge in airstrikes and displacement
orders.”</p>
<p>Israel targeted the Masnaa border crossing between Syria and Lebanon,
“a major axis for relief supplies coming into the country and used by
families fleeing to Syria in search of safety,” according to OCHA.</p>
<p>“It is imperative that all civilians be allowed to flee to safer
areas, and that they be protected whether they stay or leave,” OCHA
added.</p>
<p>At least four hospitals in Lebanon suspended work due to Israeli attacks, the AFP news agency <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/four-lebanese-hospitals-suspend-services-amid-israeli-bombing/">reported</a> on Friday.</p>
<h2>Health workers killed in Lebanon</h2>
<p>On Thursday, Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, <a href="https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/lebanon/statement-humanitarian-coordinator-lebanon-imran-riza-attacks-against-healthcare-lebanon-3-october-2024">said</a> that at least 73 health workers had lost their lives in escalated attacks in southern Lebanon.</p>
<p>“In the past 24 hours, 28 health workers have been killed,” Riza
added, “underscoring the alarming escalation of violence and its
devastating impact on those providing life-saving care.”</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Israel bombed a relief center in central Beirut in
“another dangerous escalation,” Riza said, resulting “in the deaths of
paramedics, civil defense and relief officers who were actively
assisting displaced and affected communities.”</p>
<p>Riza said that such attacks “are serious violations of international
humanitarian law, undermining humanitarian efforts and threatening the
safety of those providing life-saving assistance.”</p>
<p>Following the killing of healthcare workers in Beirut overnight Wednesday, Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, <a href="https://x.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1841792911060410382">said</a> “I condemn this violation of IHL [international humanitarian law].”</p>
<p>But condemnations will do little to protect paramedics and other
health workers targeted by Israel in Lebanon, especially as Matthew
Miller, the US State Department spokesperson, gave Israel the benefit of
the doubt when it comes to its attacks on hospitals during a <a href="https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-october-3-2024/">press briefing</a> on Thursday:
</p>
Paramedics in Lebanon <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/lebanese-healthcare-workers-fearful-as-growing-numbers-killed-in-strikes">interviewed by <em>The Guardian</em></a> said there was a pattern of Israel launching airstrikes “whenever they arrived at a location to start rescue operations.”
<p>Rabih Issah, a commissioner with a medical organization active in
south Lebanon, said paramedics have received phone calls “with a voice
speaking Arabic on the other end, warning them to evacuate their medical
centers,” according to <em>The Guardian</em>.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ghassan-abu-sitta">Ghassan Abu Sitta</a>,
a British-Palestinian plastic surgeon who worked in Gaza during the
first weeks of the genocide, told the UK publication that Israel was
repeating in Lebanon what it had done in Gaza.</p>
<p>“He said he was concerned that damaging the health system in south
Lebanon is part of an Israeli strategy to clear areas along the
Lebanon-Israel border of its inhabitants,” <em>The Guardian</em> reported.</p>
<p>Months earlier, Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/07/israel-us-arms-used-strike-killed-lebanon-aid-workers">published a report</a> stating it had documented the use of American weapons in Israel’s unlawful attacks on aid workers in Lebanon.</p>
<p>The organization said at the time that the US “should immediately
suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel” and called on
Lebanon to pursue war crimes investigations at the International
Criminal Court.</p><br>
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