Not only did Israel fail to evacuate its army from Southern Lebanon on Sunday, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement, its forces also shot over 130 Lebanese civilians attempting to return home in accordance with the deal, killing 23 and wounding 109 (of whom some are in critical condition).
This included a 12-year-old boy wounded in the neck in Kfarkela, standing right next to my local producer Mahmood. I was 20 yards away and on my way to them. Four were killed in Kfarkela and overnight the Israeli army demolished numerous homes there in “punishment.”
Apart from one Lebanese army soldier, all of the dead were civilians simply attempting to return to their homes. At least five of the dead were children. All were shot, not bombed. Israel’s excuse for not withdrawing is that the ceasefire agreement is not fulfilled, in that Hezbollah have not been disarmed south of the Litani River, and that the Lebanese army has not assumed control.
I have spent every waking hour of three days travelling the entire southern border (remember Lebanon is a very small country; its entire area is less than Yorkshire or Connecticut and the demarcated border region is much smaller still).
I can guarantee the Lebanese army is fully in control of the area. There are army checkpoints at every major crossroads and town entrance and at every track into the hills. What is more to the point, I saw nobody at all except for the Lebanese army carrying weapons.
Hezbollah are a significant political presence still — they are the largest political party in Lebanon — but they are not carrying arms in the ceasefire zone south of the Litani. Furthermore the Lebanese army has indeed occupied and taken over or dismantled Hezbollah’s military positions in this zone. They have confiscated over 50 arms caches.
The only areas of southern Lebanon not under the control of the Lebanese armed forces are those areas occupied by the Israeli army.
The role of the Lebanese army is extremely dubious, but 100 percent in Israel’s favour. The Lebanese army is fully under U.S. control. Literally, 50 percent of the salary of every single Lebanese soldier is directly paid by the U.S. government.
On Sunday, the Lebanese army simply watched the Israeli army massacre Lebanese civilians. If the Lebanese army was protecting anybody yesterday, it was protecting the Israeli Defence Forces.
Still more extraordinary, the new Lebanese government failed to protest at the Israeli failure to withdraw, and the Trump administration has subsequently announced that Lebanon has agreed to extend the withdrawal deadline until Feb. 18.
In fact neither Israel nor the USA ever had the slightest intention of IDF withdrawal. Israel has demolished more than 2,000 Lebanese homes during the ceasefire period, about half of them in towns and villages which Israel was unable to reach during the fighting but has occupied during the ceasefire.
I visited the city of Khiam yesterday and was simply stunned by the scale of devastation. Over 1,000 homes there have been demolished by Israel.
Israeli devastation in Khiam, Southern Lebanon on Monday. (Craig Murray)
Amongst all the debris, I managed to track down the piano of Dr. Julia Ali, which became an internet meme after she posted a video of herself playing it in her beautiful home, and then Israeli soldiers mocking it after the home was devastated.
The piano of Dr. Julia Ali, Khiam, Lebanon. (Craig Murray)
The house is an interesting case study. The Zionist propagandists replied to the internet videos by stating that there was a Hezbollah rocket installation in the garden. I searched extensively and found absolutely no evidence this was anything except a civilian home. There were no signs of anything unusual in the garden.
The house was not bombed. It was partially demolished by explosives, shot up and set on fire, after being used as an Israeli barracks. The surviving furniture was ripped up with knives, and the mirrors, chandeliers, piano, porcelain and crystal all smashed.
Doll among the detritus seen on Monday following Israeli attacks, Khiam, Lebanon. (Craig Murray)
Women’s clothing was strewn all around, as were dolls. Large obscene drawings and Hebrew graffiti were painted on the walls. In a room used for meals, used paper plates were all upside down on the floor and had been used to smear the food around. The floor was littered with food tins, used plastic cutlery, empty drink bottles and human excrement, again deliberately smeared around.
Throughout the building and garden were scattered numerous ammunition boxes, from small arms to tank rounds. All of it was U.S.-manufactured.
U.S.-made ammunition box in the rubble Monday after an Israeli attack in Khiam, southern Lebanon. (Craig Murray)
All of the television sets, satellite receivers, music systems and kitchen electricals were ripped out, as was the generator set.
I went to the neighbouring villa, where a female owner was salvaging from the wreckage with her son in law. Again, all of the electrical equipment and the generator set had been taken. Also disappeared was jewellery, a highly valuable collection of antique rugs and significant paintings. None of this was among the rubble.
We investigated further in the area and could find no instance of any TVs or valuables, or their remnants, in the rubble. We also found instances of shops, particularly a designer clothes shop and a phone shop, whose entire content had been looted.
A soldier cannot put a generator set or an antique carpet in his backpack. This industrial scale of looting has to be officially sanctioned by the IDF and involve military transport vehicles, or vehicles requisitioned by the military.
It may not compare to the murder of children, but is itself a war crime. The Western mainstream media, which made a huge noise about Russian looting in Ukraine, has never mentioned this massive Israeli looting.
The ceasefire agreement was a disgrace that was bound to lead to this conclusion. The notion that its monitors, France and the United States, are in any sense neutral is laughable. Israel has no intention whatsoever of withdrawing from southern Lebanon and continues daily destruction of Lebanese homes while constructing at least five fortified military bases.
What I still find astonishing is that new Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Najib Mikati have agreed to extend the Israeli occupation on these obviously false pretexts. Israel has committed over 120 documented violations of the ceasefire. Hezbollah has committed one, in early December, in response to multiple Israeli attacks on civilians.
Hezbollah is in real danger of looking like a busted flush. It agreed to disarm in the ceasefire deal, which would leave Israel able to annex southern Lebanon with no serious opposition on the ground. It does seem that Hezbollah’s war losses and the assassination of its leadership cadre has left it incapable of any significant military response to extended Israeli occupation. Its response to yesterday’s massacre has been only rhetoric.
As of today, Israel appears well set to consolidate its extension of Greater Israel into both southern Lebanon and southern Syria, with the active complicity of U.S.-backed governments in both Beirut and Damascus.
In the long term, I believe the atrocities of Israel will be rejected by the people of the region and bring about its downfall. But currently it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump who are smiling.
Main photo: The author reporting Monday on Israeli ceasefire violations in Kfarkela, Southern Lebanon © Craig Murray.
Source: Consortium News.
