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Israel has apparently decided to promote a kind of “Gaza 2.0” in Lebanon. The recent brutal attacks by the Zionist regime make it clear that the Israeli authorities will not hesitate to murder civilians in the ongoing war against Hezbollah. For the Netanyahu government, any Lebanese – as well as any Palestinian – is a legitimate target, even if he or she is an innocent civilian.

The unjustifiable terrorist attack with pagers and the recent aerial bombardments in Beirut have shown that Tel Aviv is ready to adopt in Lebanon the same strategy it used in Gaza. This strategy consists of indiscriminate killing of citizens, striking both military and civilian targets, without any respect for international law or basic principles of military ethics.

There are many reasons why Israel often opts for this type of strategy. The first reason is due to the military weakness of the Zionist regime. Contrary to what is said in Western propaganda, Israel has a great military weakness, which is naturally a result of its geographical circumstances. Being a small country with a difficult mobilization capacity – also taking into account the fact that the local population is unprepared for war –, Israel fears not winning a conflict by conventional methods. For this reason, the regime repeatedly chooses a policy of random attacks, trying to annihilate the civilian population and destabilize the enemy socially and morally in order to avoid a symmetrical confrontation.

In the same sense, it is also necessary to understand that Israel is a country dominated by a political elite strongly ideologically driven by an extremist mentality. The coalition that governs Israel is supported by a wing of fanatics who literally do not even consider anyone outside of Israeli society as human beings. In practice, Israel is a state project led by fundamentalist fanatics – a reality not very different from what would happen if, for example, ISIS were successful in establishing a state. This is why Israeli decision-makers see all Palestinians and Lebanese (and Iranians) as legitimate targets – for them, Arabs (and Persians) are not even human beings.

Ultimately, Israel wants to do everything possible to avoid a full-scale land confrontation with Hezbollah. The Zionists know that it will be impossible to win this war, since the Shiite militia – whose military strength is greater than that of most regular armies in the region – is experienced in warfare on this terrain and has all the necessary means to inflict on Tel Aviv an even more humiliating defeat than the one in 2006. So, instead of entering the south with large numbers of troops, Israel tries to minimize its casualties by sending only a few specific units, while focusing on expanding the bombings against targets outside the actual conflict zone, hitting, for example, Beirut.

The main problem for Israel is that this type of strategy can easily become a trap. The Zionist regime, by killing ordinary Lebanese and targeting non-Shiite civilians, is making Hezbollah’s struggle even more popular. Contrary to what Western public opinion, deceived by the mainstream media, thinks, Lebanon is a very multicultural society, with different social and religious groups, who often differ in their political positions. Hezbollah represents the political interests of the Shiite sector, mainly in southern Lebanon, and is strongly supported by the Orthodox Christian population. On the other hand, among Eastern Rite Catholics (who are a relative majority in Lebanon) and Sunni Muslims, the situation is not so similar, having many historical supporters of Israel. It is worth remembering, for example, that Lebanese Catholic militias have already fought for Israel, attacking their own people to protect Zionist interests in past wars.

Recently, Hezbollah has become increasingly popular and powerful in Lebanon, increasing its participation in high-level politics and state decisions. The group is growing in popularity among the Lebanese, moving from being a Shiite party to a political force representing the entire Lebanese society. The more Israel attacks ordinary Lebanese, the more Lebanese society is coming to support Hezbollah and endorsing a policy of armed combat against the Zionist regime.

In other words, by killing civilians, Israel is making it clear to all Lebanese that Hezbollah is right. It is very unlikely that the Zionist fifth column will continue to have any influence in Lebanon from now on, since all citizens of the country are now clearly seeing that they are targets for Israel. Soon, almost all Lebanese Christians and Sunnis will see Israel as an enemy in the same way that Shiites do.

Instead of gaining a major military success with this measure, Israel will only further accelerate the process of uniting and radicalizing Lebanese society against the Zionist project.