Democracy Now! / September 27, 2024
Guests : Mona Fawaz – professor of urban planning at the American University of Beirut
We get an update from Lebanon, where the death toll from Israeli airstrikes has risen to over 700 since Monday, following a series of explosions involving pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week. The Israeli military reiterated its troops were preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Multiple Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles have appeared across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. As the Biden administration claims it’s working toward a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel is set to receive a new military aid package from the United States totalling some $8.7 billion. “People are really scared,” says Mona Fawaz, professor of urban planning at the American University of Beirut. “Israel does these so-called targeted assassinations, which, sadly, much of the Western press has been celebrating, and they talk about Israelis’ ingenuity. In fact, it’s targeting everyone.” Fawaz discusses the context for Lebanon’s crisis, organizing to shelter and survive the bombing, and the Israeli messaging about evacuation orders and Hezbollah.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We go now to Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have already killed at least 25 people today, including a family of nine in the border town of Shebaa, bringing the death toll to over 700 since Israel began its indiscriminate bombing on Monday. Israel’s strikes follow a series of explosions involving booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week that killed at least 37 people and injured more than 3,500.
In an apparent flip-flop, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative for a temporary ceasefire, which has also been backed by France, by Canada, by Saudi Arabia, by UAE, by the European Union and others. This comes after Netanyahu had publicly rejected the ceasefire proposal and vowed Israel will carry on, with “full force,” attacks on Lebanon. Netanyahu spoke Thursday as he landed here in New York, where he’s scheduled to address leaders of the U.N. General Assembly.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] My policy, our policy, is clear: We are continuing to hit Hezbollah with full force, and we will not stop until we achieve our goals — first and foremost, returning the residents of the north safely to their homes.
AMY GOODMAN: Netanyahu’s remarks came as the Israeli military reiterated its troops are preparing for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Earlier today, Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles were seen crossing Israel’s northern border into Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Lebanese officials say the number of displaced people fleeing Israel’s attacks has likely surpassed a quarter of a million, with tens of thousands sheltering in evacuation centers, in schools that have been closed in Beirut and across Lebanon.
Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly Thursday, the Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib urged all parties to agree to a ceasefire, as he said the worsening violence threatens Lebanon’s very existence. He said a U.S.-, France-led proposal for that temporary truce was an opportunity to generate momentum to take steps toward ending the crisis.
ABDALLAH BOU HABIB: [translated] Lebanon is living through a crisis that threatens its very existence. The future of our people and our prosperity are in peril, and this is a situation that requires international intervention on an urgent basis before the situation spirals out of control with a domino effect, making the crisis impossible to contain. It will be impossible to extinguish the flame of this crisis, which will transform into a black hole that will engulf regional, international peace and security. The crisis in Lebanon threatens the entire Middle East if the situation remains as it currently is and if the world remains immobile.
AMY GOODMAN: As the Biden administration claims it backs a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel says it’s set to receive a new military aid package from the United States totalling some $8.7 billion.
For more, we go to Beirut, where we’re joined by Mona Fawaz, professor of urban planning at American University of Beirut. She’s also an activist.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what’s happening on the ground, with tens of thousands of people taking shelter in schools and other places, a quarter of a million people displaced? You yourself are involved with helping to house people. What’s happening?
MONA FAWAZ: Hi, Amy. And thanks for covering all of this.
So, really, everyone here in Beirut is under — actually, in Lebanon, is under extreme duress. Since Monday, we’ve had more than, the Ministry of Health just announced, 747 deaths. That is in three days, actually — more than half the people killed back in 2006 during the entire war. That means that people fled the south really very, very quickly, and the Beqaa. And so, the normal trickle down is instead huge flows of people who are traveling across stranded roads, spending hours and hours on trips that normally would just take 45 minutes.
And, of course, people are fleeing because they’ve just been watching for a whole year a genocide unfold in Gaza, and they’ve been hearing members of the Israeli political class and the generals repeating over and over again that they’re turning Beirut into another Gaza. So that means that people are really scared. And Israel is pounding the south and the Beqaa with one raid after another. And they’re also deploying all sorts of tactics to scare people, throwing leaflets, taking over the public phone station to robot call people and issue calls telling everyone to evacuate our classrooms, our homes. Everyone was getting these calls on Monday and Tuesday.
So, it’s really a lot of stress that you have to deal with, in the background of a country that for the last 11 years have suffered one shock after the other. So, that population, one in five of whom is actually still a Syrian refugee, has also lost 80% — 80% of its population is below the poverty line since we went bankrupt in 2019. We haven’t had a president since 20— for two years now, actually. So, there is a — we have had to basically try and help each other in a context which is really very severe.
And as you pointed out, the schools are closed. Our kids are home, because the schools are being used in shelter. One in two schools in Beirut is actually a shelter right now, and more than 40% of all the public schools in Lebanon have been turned into shelter.
And it’s getting closer and closer to us. I mean, Israel does these so-called targeted assassinations, which, sadly, much of the Western press has been celebrating, and they talk about Israelis’ ingenuity. In fact, I mean, it’s targeting everyone. It’s touching everyone. Just yesterday, there was an attack in Beirut, and it wounded one of my architecture students, a fourth-year architecture student at the American University of Beirut. So, I mean, these are not fighters; these are civilians. She just lived on the wrong street, because Israel decided to do that. Last Monday’s attack killed about 50 people.
I mean, I guess I’m just trying to show the extent to which people are trying to get involved, make a difference, help each other, but really in a very, very difficult context. And, yes, of course, most of the people I know are actually involved in trying to help people. So, most of us are sheltering family members or friends or people we know in our own homes. We also are fundraising for the Civil Defense, because Israel has been actually targeting ambulances, claiming that the wounded are fighters, but that means that the Civil Defense, which is basically the first responders, are losing their lives and their ambulances. And so we’re trying to fundraise for them. We’re trying to fundraise for medications. And because I work in a lab that normally would do a lot of urban visualization on housing and rent, we’re actually really mapping the violence, and then also all the schools, and trying to coordinate the action of solidarity by showing where the schools are, who can take aid where, so as, basically, the university can play that role of coordination and support for solidarity movements.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel says it’s warned tens of thousands of people — I think even the information minister of Lebanon — to move, they say, anyone who’s living near a Hezbollah facility or where weapons are stored. How do people know this, Professor Fawaz?
MONA FAWAZ: Of course, people cannot know where Hezbollah has weapons. And, of course, Israel can claim anything it wants. In fact, they’ve been sending bombs in all sorts of neighbourhoods and areas of the country where it’s very unlikely that Hezbollah has any weapons. And the point is to basically set people against the party and to basically make it seem as if the war is just the result of Hezbollah’s belligerence.
In practice, there has been ridiculous videos showing people hiding weapons under their mattresses. It’s actually really condescending picture — cartoons oriented towards the Lebanese people, telling them, “Hey, you know the person who hid the bomb under your sofa? Can you — do you remember that guy? He was a Hezbollah.” This is ridiculous. I mean, people don’t know, and that is actually increasing the fear.
And it’s basically meant to be divisive, because the Lebanese society, at the base, is already quite divided on many issues, and also to put people into — under more duress, to just say, “OK, we surrender. You can do whatever you want.” No one can ever say no to mighty Israel and its sponsors.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you’re a professor of urban planning. Can you explain the scale of the destruction in Lebanon due to Israel’s attacks right now? You’re documenting the frequency of the attacks, the demolition of infrastructure. We just have a minute.
MONA FAWAZ: Well, since last October, we have been documenting the strikes on daily basis and showing where they go and how. And our evidence is very clear. It shows that Israel has hit Lebanon, until last week, four times more often and way more, way deeper. In the last week, of course, the numbers have gone up the roof, and it is impossible to count how much of the demolition has actually happened. So we are working to geo-sat that, because, as in previous wars, we will have to support the effort of reconstruction. But some of the villages on the edges of Lebanon are basically fully flattened.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Mona Fawaz. Please stay safe, professor of urban planning at the American University of Beirut.
