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A family is pictured waiting in a traffic jam in southern Lebanon

A family is pictured waiting in a traffic jam in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on September 23, 2024 as the Israeli military bombarded the country.

(Photo: Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli Bombardment Kills 350+ in Lebanon as Fury Over US Complicity Grows

A Lebanese American activist told U.S. President Joe Biden that "the more weapons you send, the more civilians killed."

The Israeli military's massive bombing campaign in eastern and southern Lebanon on Monday killed more than 350 people and wounded at least 1,200, overwhelming the country's already-strained hospitals, increasing the likelihood of all-out war, and intensifying calls for an arms embargo against Israel.

The Associated Pressdescribed the Israeli bombardment on Monday as the "deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war," and it came just days after Israel's military detonated thousands of pagers and other electronic devices across Lebanon, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands more in what experts—including former CIA director Leon Panetta—called an act of terrorism.

Lebanon's health ministry accused Israeli forces of targeting hospitals and ambulances with its bombing campaign, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed was targeted at the Lebanese political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah.

At least two dozen children and 42 women were reportedly among those killed by Israeli bombs on Monday. According toThe New York Times, Lebanon's health minister said that "thousands of families have been displaced amid today’s Israeli offensive," and "some of their cars and vehicles were hit as they tried to make it to safety."

Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement in the U.S., said earlier Monday that he was "overwhelmed" by news from members of his family in Lebanon.

"In our village, reports of a mom and her daughters killed in their home by an Israeli airstrike. In my cousins', their great aunt and three daughters, the same," Alawieh wrote on social media.

Directing his message at U.S. President Joe Biden, Alawieh added, "The more weapons you send, the more civilians killed."


A spokesperson for the IDF said the Israeli military hit more than 1,300 targets in Lebanon over the past 24 hours and provided no indication that the assault is over. In response, Hezbollah fired more than 160 rockets into Israeli territory, most of which were reportedly intercepted.

Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said in a statement Monday that the U.N. chief is "gravely alarmed" by escalating violence in Lebanon and "the large number of civilian casualties, including children and women, being reported by the Lebanese authorities, as well as thousands of displaced persons, amidst the most intense Israeli bombing campaign since last October."

"The secretary-general is also gravely alarmed by the continued strikes by Hezbollah into Israel," Dujarric added. "He expresses grave concern for the safety of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line, including U.N. personnel, and strongly condemns the loss of lives."

"We're on the brink of a full-on regional war in the Middle East because for decades—let alone the last year—we have armed Israel with the weapons to commit genocide with impunity."

Israel's large-scale bombing campaign sparked alarm throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Egypt's government issued a statement condemning Israel's "dangerous" escalation in Lebanon and called for emergency action from the U.N. Security Council to stop the IDF's attacks. The Iraqi government also called for an end to Israeli "aggression" in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement that "the countries that unconditionally support Israel are helping [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu shed blood for his political interests."

In the U.S.—Israel's top ally and arms supplier—lawmakers and advocacy groups condemned the Biden administration as an active enabler of Israel's attacks on Lebanon, given that it has refused to cut off the flow of American weaponry.

"It's easier to stop sending the Israel government weapons to conduct its genocidal wars than it is to evacuate every American in Lebanon," Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the lone Palestinian American in the U.S. Congress, wrote in response to a U.S. Embassy alert over the weekend urging U.S. citizens to leave Lebanon while commercial options "are still available."

Justice Democrats, a progressive advocacy group, wrote Monday that "we're on the brink of a full-on regional war in the Middle East because for decades—let alone the last year—we have armed Israel with the weapons to commit genocide with impunity in Palestine."

"If Democrats don't want to be responsible for another endless war," the group added, "arms embargo now."

Raed Jarrar, advocacy director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said in a statement that "Israel is making clear to the entire world that it wants a broad regional war, not just in the occupied Palestinian territory, but also in Lebanon and Iran; the only way to stop its untethered belligerence is to stop rewarding it with more and more American weapons."

"Without halting Israel's attacks in the region, there will be no path to peace, and the consequences will reverberate far beyond Lebanon's borders," said Jarrar.

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