Israel’s war in Lebanon is another example of the criminal impunity of a rogue, terrorist state

Israel’s actions have destabilized Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. They have inflamed regional tensions, fuelled extremism, and undermined diplomatic efforts.  

By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

While the genocide in Gaza continues unabated Israeli leaders have now expanded their war crimes regime to Lebanon, where the 2026 invasion is not an aberration, not a sudden eruption of violence, and certainly not a defensive reflex. It is the latest chapter in a decades‑long pattern of criminal impunity—an extension of the same tactics, doctrines, and policies that have devastated Gaza. What is unfolding today in southern Lebanon is not merely a “spillover” from Gaza or a confrontation with Hezbollah. It is the exportation of the Gaza model of military aggression—the systematic destruction, mass displacement, territorial engineering, and steady normalization of Israel’s annexationist ambitions that have animated its leaders’ strategic thinking for decades.

Since the beginning of the Israeli invasion Lebanese authorities have reported more than 4,300 killed and over 12,000 wounded, with over one million displaced—roughly one‑fifth of the country forced from their homes. Israel has conducted thousands of airstrikes, bulldozed entire villages, bombed the suburbs of Beirut, and expanded operations far beyond its self‑declared “Yellow Line,” pushing up to ten kilometers into Lebanese territory. These are not temporary incursions, and this has been confirmed by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in conversations with Israeli soldiers. They are in effect the creation of “facts on the ground,” the same methodical approach Israel has used for decades in the West Bank to transform an illegal occupation into a permanent presence.

The Gaza model exported

Israel’s military leaders have openly described their Lebanon campaign as a replication of tactics used in the Gaza genocide. Defence Minister Israel Katz referenced the “Rafah and Beit Hanoun model,” promising to demolish homes, flatten neighborhoods, and prevent civilian returns until Israel’s objectives are met. Soldiers have told reporters they are “operating exactly as we do in Gaza,” with daily destruction quotas and target lists.

Satellite imagery confirms the scale of devastation. Villages such as Bint Jbeil, Ayta al‑Shaab, and Khiam have been razed through controlled demolitions and bulldozing of buildings, mirroring Gaza’s obliterated districts. Additionally, Israel has struck civilian infrastructure—bridges over the Litani River, water facilities near the Qaraoun Dam, hospitals, schools, mosques, and farmland—all considered war crimes under international law. Furthermore, reported use of white phosphorus against civilian targets—already documented extensively in Gaza—have emerged again in Lebanon.  Another instance of Israel committing a war crime.

These actions are neither counterterrorism nor acts of self-defence. They are collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and territorial reconfiguration intended to support long-term occupation. It is the Gaza doctrine applied against a sovereign state.

A historical pattern of territorial ambition

While Israel’s defenders insist that these operations are purely defensive, aimed at neutralizing Hezbollah, the scale, the systematic razing of villages, the infrastructure destruction, and the establishment of a de facto occupied buffer zone suggest something far more ambitious, demographic engineering with the intent of effectively annexing territory.

This ambition is not new. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978, again in 1982, and occupied southern Lebanon until 2000. It launched a massive war in 2006, destroying swaths of the country. Each time, Israeli leaders spoke of “security zones,” “buffer areas,” and “temporary measures.” Each time, those measures hardened into long‑term territorial claims.

These actions align with a broader ideological project often referred to as “Greater Israel”— a maximalist vision proposed by Zionism’s founder Theodor Herzl, rooted in biblical nationalism and embraced by elements of Israel’s political and religious right. This project imagines Israeli control stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and from Turkey to northern Saudi Arabia. While not official state policy, its influence is unmistakable in settlement expansion, annexation rhetoric, and repeated military incursions into neighboring states.

Lebanon, characterized by political fragmentation, deep economic crisis, a weak military and the overwhelming impact of incessant and highly destructive attacks by Israel, is uniquely vulnerable to such ambitions. Israel’s current operations—creating cleared zones, establishing military outposts, and preventing civilians from returning to their homes and properties—mirror the early stages of territorial absorption seen in the West Bank. The logic is clear. Israel weakens the state, depopulates strategic areas, and normalizes Israeli presence, all in violation of international law.

Crimes under international law

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment, the destruction of civilian property and infrastructure, and the forcible transfer of populations—precisely the kinds of actions Israel has carried out in Lebanon. The Rome Statute defines war crimes as intentional attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and crimes against humanity as widespread or systematic assaults on civilian populations. Israel’s conduct in Lebanon falls squarely within these prohibitions.

The mass displacement of over one million people, the razing of villages, the destruction of essential infrastructure, and the establishment of a de facto occupation zone constitute grave breaches of international law. Additionally, UN experts and human rights organizations have warned of ethnic cleansing and potential crimes against humanity.  These warnings echo those issued during Israel’s Gaza campaign, where the International Court of Justice found a “plausible risk of genocide” and ordered provisional measures to prevent further atrocities. Enabled by its Western allies, the US in particular, Israel ignored them.

US backing fuels Israeli impunity

Israel’s ability to commit these crimes repeatedly—and expand them into new theaters—rests on one foundation: unconditional US support.

The United States provides billions in military aid annually, vetoes UN resolutions calling for ceasefires or accountability, and shields Israel from sanctions or international prosecution. This support persists regardless of the severity of Israeli crimes. It persisted through the flattening of Gaza, the mass murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians, and the destruction of hospitals, schools, and refugee camps, and it now continues with Israeli crimes in Lebanon.

The contrast with Western responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is staggering. Russia’s aggression triggered sweeping sanctions, diplomatic isolation, ICC arrest warrants, and massive military support for Ukraine. Israel’s aggression in Gaza triggered statements of “concern” and “alarm” followed by expedited weapons shipments. This double standard is not merely hypocrisy—it is blatant complicity. Under international law, states that knowingly provide material support enabling war crimes share responsibility for those crimes.

Israel as the region’s most destabilizing force

Israel’s defenders claim that as the only “democracy” in the Middle-East it is a stabilizing force in a volatile region. However, decades of evidence suggests the opposite.

Israel has launched major wars or invasions against Lebanon (1978, 1982, 1996, 2006, 2026), Gaza (2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2023–26), and repeatedly escalated tensions with Syria and Iran. It maintains an apartheid system in the West Bank, enforces a siege on Gaza, and conducts regular strikes across the region.  No other Middle Eastern state has initiated as many cross‑border conflicts, displaced as many civilians, or destroyed as much infrastructure in neighboring countries. No other state has repeatedly violated international law with such impunity, and yet the world has done nothing to stop them.

Israel’s actions have destabilized Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. They have inflamed regional tensions, fuelled extremism, and undermined diplomatic efforts. And because Israel can influence US military policy—through lobbying, intelligence partnerships, and political pressure—it can and has dragged the world’s most powerful military into regional escalations.

A state that repeatedly violates international law, destabilizes its neighbors, and wields disproportionate influence over US foreign policy is not merely a regional threat. It is a potential threat to world peace.

The biker gang analogy

If a biker gang rolled into a town, torched buildings, murdered residents, and declared parts of the territory off‑limits, the full weight of law enforcement would descend. No appeals to “self‑defence” against adversaries would excuse systematic destruction.

Yet when Israel does the same—flattening villages, displacing millions, occupying foreign soil—the international response has been muted, and there has been no effort to hold its leaders accountable. This selective enforcement of law reveals the moral bankruptcy of the so‑called international “rules‑based order” which Western nations so often invoke against their adversaries

Israel’s war in Lebanon is not an isolated conflict. It is part of a decades‑long pattern of aggression, territorial ambition, and criminal impunity. Without accountability—through sanctions, arms embargoes, ICC prosecutions, and diplomatic pressure—the cycle is bound to continue.

The world cannot remain passive in the face of Israeli exceptionalism. The credibility of international law, the stability of the Middle East, and even the prospects for global peace depend on ending this impunity and holding Israel’s leaders fully accountable.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.   

How do we live with this? One man’s lament about the Gaza genocide

As a human rights activist living safely in Canada, I ask: How can Western leaders live with the knowledge of Israeli atrocities? What is so broken in them that they don’t act to stop genocide?

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

I live 8,965 kilometres from Gaza, in a country that claims to be a defender of human rights and international law, and professes to be a moral leader on the world stage. Yet every day for more than two and a half years, I have seen images and read stories coming out of Gaza that have hollowed out something inside me. I have seen bloodied bodies, children with limbs torn away, parents carrying what remains of their babies in small plastic bags because an Israeli missile or bomb left nothing else to bury. The people of Gaza are not soldiers or combatants. They are Palestinian civilians—families—targeted by the military of a fascist, genocidal state that has long ceased to see them as human beings, a people who have been abandoned by Canada and other nations that claim to champion human rights, but refuse to intervene when the crime of crimes—genocide—is being committed by Israel in front of our eyes.

Despite all I’ve seen and read, despite my knowledge of the cruelty inflicted by Israel on Palestinians for decades, nothing prepared me for the story of the Palestinian father trapped beneath the rubble of a building bombed by and Israeli fighter jet.

I first saw the image last night on social media, of a man with only his head sticking out of the rubble, and read the short description that went with it.  In the quiet of the night, I read about rescuers digging frantically through the debris trying to save him. Above a small gap in the rubble was a look of agony and terror on the father’s face.  His body was pinned beneath the ruins of what had once been his home. His daughters were deeper below, their small hands still clinging to his fingers in the darkness. He could hear their fading breaths and their grip weakening. When the rescuers began to dig away at the rubble around him he looked at them with a gaze so full of exhaustion and horror that it pierced through the screen and lodged itself in my chest.

“Leave me,” he told the rescuers.  He told them his daughters were also under the rubble, holding his fingers, and that he didn’t want to leave them alone.

These words haunt me. They echo in my mind and when I tried to sleep last night I couldn’t. So I decided to write about this Palestinian father, the nameless man in the social media post, whose face is now imprinted on my brain.

By the time you read this, and hopefully share it on social media, I will be trying to live a normal life again, as I have so many times since the Gaza genocide began, as I’ve heard or read a particularly horrific story.  But what is considered normal in such a scenario? I wonder, what parent—what human being—could bear to survive while his children die beneath him? What words can capture the agony of someone who feels the life draining from the small hands they once held while crossing the street, while tucking them into bed, while promising them safety?

And as I sat with the weight of his plea to the rescuers—to be left under the rubble so he could die beside his daughters—I found myself thinking of the tens of thousands of Palestinian parents who have endured this same nightmare. Not only during the current genocide, but in the years before, every time Israel sent its warplanes to bomb homes, apartment blocks, and refugee camps. I thought of the parents who have carried the limp bodies of their children through the streets, their faces frozen in shock. I thought of the children who have clawed through rubble with their bare hands, screaming the names of their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. I thought of the Palestinians who have found only fragments of their loved ones—pieces so small they could fit into a shopping bag. And I thought of the fathers and mothers who have buried entire families in mass graves, not because they wanted to, but because they had no choice, because even in death, they could not risk gathering for a proper funeral without fearing another Israel bomb or missile would land on them.

This is not an isolated tragedy. It is a pattern, a system, a deliberate and calculated destruction of a people, in full view of the world.

As a human rights activist living in the safety of Canada, I ask myself: How can Western leaders live with this knowledge? What is so broken in them that they can’t take action to stop the non-stop carnage committed by Israel? They receive daily briefings. They see the same images the public sees. They know that the vast majority of those killed in Gaza are civilians. They know international human rights organizations have documented war crimes and crimes against humanity, and have declared Israel’s actions as a genocide. They know that Israeli soldiers themselves have admitted in recordings posted to social media that they “felt like Nazis” while carrying out operations in Gaza. They know all of this and yet they do nothing.

How do they sit in their offices, smile as they shake hands at political events, hold press conferences, and speak of democracy and human rights, while Palestinian children are deliberately shot, and babies suffocate under the rubble of a bombed out building?  And how can we, living safely in Canada, go about our days as though nothing is happening? How do can we casually sip our coffee, scroll through our phones, and laugh at trivial things, while a father in Gaza begs rescuers to let him die so he will not abandon his daughters in their final moments?

I don’t ask this with without judgment. I ask it with grief, with bewilderment, with a sense of moral disruption that has become impossible to shake.

Because all of us who fight to uphold and defend human rights cannot live normal lives anymore. We carry the weight of every image and video we’ve seen, every scream and cry of grief we’ve heard, every story we’ve read. We carry the trauma of being witnesses to genocide in real time, played out on the screens of our devices. We carry the depression and anger that comes from shouting into a void where leaders pretend not to hear what we’re saying. We carry the despair of knowing that morality—once claimed as a Western virtue—is a lie and has been traded for political convenience and military alliances.

For the past two and a half years we have marched, we have written to our political leaders, penned op-eds, held media conferences, commented on social media, protested, pleaded for our leaders to find their humanity and take action. Yet still, those who lead our governments refuse to listen or act.

If this is now the norm—if this is how the world responds to a fascist state committing genocide—then what hope is there for how nations will respond to other conflicts where the innocent are slaughtered? What hope is there for humanity when the most powerful nations on earth, who have the power to stop Israel’s crimes, watch and do nothing as children, women and men are murdered simply for who they are? What hope is there when museums dedicated to human rights, like the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, face pressure to silence Palestinian history because the stories of Palestinians are deemed too “controversial” by Zionist groups who cannot tolerate the true story of their suffering and subjugation, or being portrayed as human beings?  What hope is there when even our grief and the truth about history is policed?

The father under the rubble will haunt me for a long time because he represents more than one man’s tragedy. He represents the collapse of the world’s moral order and the degradation of international law. He represents the unbearable truth that Palestinian suffering has been normalized, minimized, and dismissed for generations, but especially now. He represents the question that should shake every conscience on this planet:

How much more Palestinian pain must the world witness, how many more bodies must be buried under Gaza’s rubble, before it hears the cry of the Palestinians who live there?

As a Canadian, I am both angry at and ashamed of my government’s complicity in Israel’s genocidal crimes. As a human rights activist, I am exhausted by the endless fight to make the people in power care. As a human being, I am shattered by the knowledge that Palestinians are still dying, despite a so-called ceasefire which Israel has violated thousands of times since last October, while the world debates their worth.

But as someone who refuses to give up, I say this. To Palestinians suffering under the longest and most brutal occupation of modern history—you are not forgotten. You are loved. You are never alone, and your courage in the face of ultimate evil will go down in history. There are millions around the world who stand with you, who carry your grief in their hearts, who refuse to let your stories be erased. Your suffering is not invisible. Your resistance is not in vain. And your humanity shines brighter than the darkness that seeks to destroy you.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

As Canada Day approaches should Canadians celebrate a nation complicit in Gaza’s genocide?

To celebrate Canada's birthday as usual would be to ignore the cries of Palestinian children, the destruction of an entire society, and the blood of the innocent that stains Canada’s moral fabric.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

As Canada Day approaches, the question of whether this country deserves celebration becomes impossible to ignore. Those who speak out against Canada’s role in Israel’s genocide—whether Palestinian, Jewish, or otherwise—are routinely met with smears, professional retaliation, and accusations of being antisemitic simply for opposing state violence. The cost of dissent has grown steep, with pro-Palestinian supporters being harassed, doxed, vilified and fired from their jobs, revealing a political culture increasingly hostile to those who still express moral clarity. This climate is especially chilling for racialized Canadians, particularly Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims, who have been villified by politicians and right‑wing commentators as threats to “Canadian values.” Their calls for justice are dismissed, their identities scrutinized, and their loyalties questioned. It is difficult to celebrate a nation that punishes those who demand accountability for mass atrocities.

This repression is not an aberration but part of a long and troubling continuity. Canada’s foundations rest on the dispossession and genocide of Indigenous people. Residential schools, the Indian Act, forced relocations, and systemic discrimination were not unfortunate side notes—they were central pillars of Canadian government policy. It was and is all part of an ugly history shaped by policies rooted in white supremacy, and sustained by institutions and systems built on racist foundations that continue to oppress and marginalize racialized communities across Canada.

The same colonial logic that justified the destruction of Indigenous societies at home now echoes in Canada’s support for the destruction of an Indigenous people abroad. The parallels are stark. A nation built on colonial violence and genocide now enables colonial violence and genocide in the Middle East. In such a context, the idea of celebrating Canada Day becomes morally troubling.

This also raises an unavoidable question. How can a nation claim pride in its commitment to human rights and international law while ignoring the human rights of Palestinians facing genocide, selling weapons to the perpetrators, and disregarding the very treaties it is obligated to uphold? The contradiction is too glaring to be papered over with fireworks and patriotic speeches.

Canada’s response to what is happening in Gaza—a place that has been described as a “concentration camp” by many respected human rights voices—cannot be dismissed as a foreign policy miscalculation. It reflects a deeper erosion of the values Canadians are told to celebrate on July 1st. The ideals of justice, equality, and compassion—values often wrapped in the symbolism of the maple leaf—ring hollow when that same symbol is implicated in the suffering of an entire people. Domestic achievements such as universal healthcare or multiculturalism cannot absolve a nation of its role in enabling mass atrocities. A country cannot claim moral leadership abroad while facilitating a genocide.

History offers no refuge from this reckoning. After the Holocaust, many Germans claimed that they did not know the extent of the horrors unfolding around them. Today, such claims would not be believed because the genocide in Gaza has been visible to the world every single day for almost a thousand days. The evidence of genocidal crimes committed by Israel is overwhelming, the suffering undeniable. Conservative estimates place the Palestinian death toll near 100,000, including tens of thousands of children. Entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble, entire family lines erased, and an entire society pushed to the edge of annihilation.

These atrocities have unfolded in real time, documented by journalists, human rights organizations, Palestinians themselves, and even Israeli soldiers. The world has watched the destruction livestreamed to their devices. And yet Canada—despite its constant declarations of commitment to human rights and international law—has chosen a path of political cowardice and moral abdication. It continues to sell weapons and support the state responsible for these crimes while offering only empty rhetoric about peace and restraint. In such a context, silence is not neutrality, it is complicity. And complicity should not be something to be celebrated on July 1st.

When this genocide ends—and it will end—there will be those eager to insist they opposed it from the beginning. But history will not be fooled. It will remember who spoke, who acted, and who chose complicity over conscience. The Canadian government’s continued arms sales to Israel, its refusal to impose broad sanctions, its failure to uphold its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention, and its unwillingness to back international legal efforts such as South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice—all of these decisions implicate this country and its leaders. And it also stains those who choose to celebrate Canada Day as though these realities do not exist.

As July 1st approaches, Canadians who believe in human rights face a profound moral dilemma. To celebrate as usual would be to ignore the cries of Palestinian children, the destruction of an entire society, and the blood of the innocent that stains Canada’s moral fabric. The threats facing Canada from Donald Trump pale in comparison to the ethical crisis unfolding within its own borders. A nation that enables genocide cannot credibly celebrate itself as a force for good.

However, there is beauty in Canada—its landscapes, its diversity, its potential for justice. But potential is not achievement, and celebration is not owed, it is earned. A nation complicit in genocide celebrating while that genocide continues is a perversity that should be called out. To mark Canada Day with pride under these circumstances would be to participate in a collective act of denial.

This July 1st should not be a day of fireworks and flag‑waving. It should be a day of reckoning—a moment to confront Canada’s role in Israel’s crimes, to demand an end to the policies that enable them, and to insist that this country finally honour the international conventions and laws it claims to uphold. Only then can Canada begin the long process of restoring its moral integrity. Only then can it aspire to be a nation worthy of pride.

Until that day arrives, Canada Day is not a day to celebrate. It is a reminder of the work that remains to be done to fulfill the potential of this nation.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.