“We are going to do what we did in Gaza.”That’s how a senior Israeli official described the Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon. The threat is real. Similar tactics to those used in Gaza are playing out in Lebanon: evacuation orders followed shortly thereafter by the wholesale destruction of entire apartment blocks, dozens of medics and first responders killed, Israeli soldiers looting the homes of civilians, infrastructure – including bridges connecting the south to the rest of the country – decimated. After a month, more than 1,200 people have been killed, including more than 120 children. One million have been displaced.If Israel’s operations in Lebanon continue, worse will follow. As in Gaza and the West Bank, there is a real possibility that land now occupied by Israeli forces in Lebanon won’t ever be returned, but instead slowly settled and annexed.Israel’s violations of international law in Gaza are so unequivocal that former allies and Western states, most recently Iceland and the Netherlands, have joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Even Germany, an almost unconditional backer of Israel, has decided it can’t defend the country at the ICJ; last month, it formally withdrew its support for the Israeli side in the case.But what will international law have to say about the violence and atrocities being waged against the Lebanese people? The answer will …
