Bombing of Lebanon - the most intense air campaign outside Gaza in 2 decades

Israel's bombing of Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon marked the world's "most intense air campaign" outside Gaza in two decades, according to the UK-based conflict monitoring group Airwars.

Emily Tripp, director of Airwars, said Israeli airstrikes were occurring at “a scale and intensity that Israel’s allies have not been able to achieve in the last 20 years.” She pointed to the US-led military campaign against the Islamic State in 2017, in which, at the height of the battle for Raqqa, the coalition deployed just 500 missiles a day. Or for most of the 20-year US war in Afghanistan, Washington carried out fewer than 3,000 airstrikes a year, except for the first year, when it did 6,500.

For comparison, in Lebanon, on September 24-25, the Israeli army said it used 2,000 shells and carried out 3,000 airstrikes.

“This is not business as usual,” the Airways chief said, referring to both the scale and frequency of Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.

Israel says it takes steps to minimize harm to civilians, such as calling and sending text messages to residents in buildings designated as targets. However, human rights groups such as Amnesty International say such warnings do not absolve Israel of its responsibility under international humanitarian law to limit harm to civilians.

Not only that, this week, CNN investigative teams in Beirut found that many of the Israeli airstrikes came without warning. Israel sent evacuation orders by text message in the middle of the night, when most people were asleep. As a result, the death toll in Lebanon continues to rise, with a fifth of the population displaced.

Since October 8, 2023, after the conflict in Gaza broke out, the southern border of Lebanon has also seen continuous fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

According to data from ACLED, an organization that collects data on violent conflicts, Israel has carried out nearly 9,000 attacks in Lebanon in nearly a year, while Hezbollah has carried out 1,500 attacks.

On September 25, Israel continued to escalate its air campaign with a series of intense airstrikes across Lebanon, marking the bloodiest day for Lebanon since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, and a turning point in the current conflict.

While most of Israel's airstrikes over the past year have targeted southern Lebanon, Israel has also stepped up attacks on the capital Beirut in recent weeks, with multiple airstrikes in southern Beirut flattening residential buildings and densely populated civilian areas.

A series of air strikes has killed at least seven senior Hezbollah commanders and officials, dealing the group its heaviest blow since its founding in the early 1980s.

Those airstrikes have largely focused on the Dahiyeh neighborhood in the south of the city, a densely populated area and Hezbollah stronghold. But as Israel’s campaign to “eradicate” Hezbollah continues, civilians are paying the heaviest price, including 127 children who have been killed in less than three weeks.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, on September 23 alone, at least 558 people - including 50 children and 94 women - were killed.

Women and girls are also particularly affected by the displacement caused by the airstrikes, according to the country director for Lebanon at humanitarian agency CARE International. Michael Adams said nearly half of the people in Lebanese emergency shelters are children and the facilities are running at capacity.

Israel is now targeting central Beirut with airstrikes for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Up to a quarter of Lebanon is under evacuation orders as Israel intensifies its ground offensive in the south, with civilians pushed back some 50km to the north. More than 100 villages in southern Lebanon have been ordered to evacuate, raising fears of a wider ground offensive.