BEIRUT: The Israeli army on Tuesday targeted parts of Lebanon along the border with incendiary white phosphorus bombs, as government officials threatened to “burn all of Lebanon” and “send it back to the Stone Age.”
Hezbollah has been engaged in a war of “distraction and support for Hamas” for nearly eight months, following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. More than 450 people have been killed in the fighting between the Lebanese militant group and the Israeli army, including 328 members of Hezbollah.
The Israeli army reportedly used bombs containing white phosphorous, a controversial incendiary munition, to target forest areas on the outskirts of the towns of Naqoura, Jabal Labouneh, Alma Al-Shaab and Boustane, causing severe damage to crops and olive, pine and oak trees. Civil defense teams battled to extinguish the fires. An area between the towns of Markaba and Hula, near a Lebanese army site, was also hit with phosphorous shells, causing fires in the forest.
There is no outright ban on white phosphorous weapons under international law, but human rights campaigners say it is illegal to use them in populated areas.
According to security reports, the Israeli army also used diesel fuel to ignite fires in forests when it shelled areas on the outskirts of the towns of Naqoura and Jabal Labouneh close to the western sector of the Blue Line, the line of demarcation between Israel and Lebanon established in June 2000 by the UN.
Areas near the town of Deir Mimas and neighboring villages were reportedly hit by Israeli cluster shells with the aim of starting fires, and locations between the towns of Markaba and Hula were struck by phosphorus shells. Israeli artillery targeted the border town of Odaisseh, as well as the outskirts of the towns of Alma Al-Shaab, Tayr Harfa and Wadi Zebqin, and directed heavy artillery fire toward the outskirts of Aita Al-Shaab and Dhayra.
A resident of Kfar Sir, a village in the Nabatieh district, told Arab News: “The shelling on the town of Odaisseh was like an earthquake that shook Kfar Sir and the town of Harouf. We felt the house move. The types of shells and missiles used by the Israeli enemy are terrifying.”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it targeted several Israeli military sites, including “positions and bases of enemy officers and soldiers in the Maaleh Golani barracks in the occupied Syrian Golan” and “the Ramim barracks with artillery shells.”
Tensions continued to mount along the border on Tuesday as fires raged in northern Israel, including at Safed, which Israeli media sources said were caused by rockets launched from Lebanon. Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that “volleys of dozens of rockets and drone launches toward the Galilee and the Golan Heights on Monday resulted in a significant number of fires.”
The Israeli military said its forces were helping efforts to extinguish fires in the north. Firefighter crews from the coastal and central regions were also called in to assist; 13 teams were said to be working in Kiryat Shmona, as well as 10 in Ami’ad and five in Naftali in the Upper Galilee.
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that the country’s War Council convened, at the request of minister Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party, to discuss the escalating conflict on the Lebanese front.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid posted a message on social media platform X about the fires, stating, “the north is burning, and with it, Israeli deterrence.”
Amid the rising tensions, Israeli officials issued stern warnings to Lebanon. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir described Hezbollah’s attacks and the resultant fires in the north of the country as “bankruptcy,” adding: “It is time for all of Lebanon to burn.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to “return Lebanon to the Stone Age” and said: “The situation in the north is deteriorating and the security zone should extend from Israel to southern Lebanon.”
In response to the Israeli threats, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said during a television interview with Al Jazeera on Tuesday: “If Israel wants to wage a full-scale war, we are ready.
“Any Israeli expansion of the war on Lebanon will be met with destruction, devastation, and displacement in Israel. We have used only a fraction of our capabilities, suited to the nature of the battle.”
He also denied there had been any “withdrawal of Radwan forces from the southern Lebanese border.”
