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Israeli Generals Call for Changing ‘Rules of the Game’ with Hezbollah

An Israeli military drone
An Israeli military drone
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Israeli Generals Call for Changing ‘Rules of the Game’ with Hezbollah

An Israeli military drone
An Israeli military drone

Current and former Israeli generals have demanded a change in the rules of game with Hezbollah and called for launching a strike even if the price is another war with Lebanon.

This week, the Lebanese army said in a tweet that an Israeli drone was shot down over Aita al-Shaab, 200 meters from the UN-drawn Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon.

One Israeli general said that the situation at the border "will no longer be tolerated,” after the army’s northern command raised the state of alert over the possibility of a Hezbollah retaliation to the killing of its fighter, Kamal Hassan, in an Israeli strike on Damascus two months ago.

The general told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Friday that this tension led to an ambiguous situation as Israeli citizens move freely on the streets, while army staff hide for fear of being targeted by Hezbollah snipers.

“The Israeli army assumes that Hezbollah wants to kill a soldier to prove the equation of one Israeli soldier killed in exchange of every Hezbollah member killed by the military. Therefore, the party would not target civilians,” the general explained.

This theory is backed up by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s recent warning of a “new equation” with Israel, saying that for every one of its fighters killed by Israel, the group will seek to kill an Israeli soldier.

The general said that in case Hezbollah succeeds in its plot, then Israel should have a strong response. “We must change the new equation that Nasrallah has placed,” he said.

The Israeli generals said the government should not hesitate in taking the decision of launching war on Lebanon.

Israel remains on high alert on its northern border amid expectations that Hezbollah would retaliate to the killing of its members in Syria.

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UN Says over 400,000 Children in Lebanon Have Been Displaced in 3 Weeks by War

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)
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UN Says over 400,000 Children in Lebanon Have Been Displaced in 3 Weeks by War

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban (R) visits a shelter for displaced people in Sidon, Lebanon, 12 October 2024. (EPA)

More than 400,000 children in Lebanon have been displaced in the past three weeks, a top official with the UN children’s agency said Monday, warning of a “lost generation” in the small country grappling with multiple crises and now in the middle of war.

Israel has escalated its campaign against the Lebanon-based Hezbollah armed group, including launching a ground invasion, after a year of exchanges of fire during its war with Hamas in Gaza.

The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, most of them fleeing to Beirut and elsewhere in the north over the past three weeks since the escalation.

Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's deputy executive director for humanitarian actions, has visited schools that have been turned into shelters to host displaced families.

“What struck me is that this war is three weeks old and so many children have been affected,” Chaiban told The Associated Press in Beirut.

“Their public schools have either been rendered inaccessible, have been damaged by the war or are being used as shelters. The last thing this country needs, in addition to everything else it has gone through, is the risk of a lost generation.”

While some Lebanese private schools are still operating, the public school system has been badly affected by the war, along with the country's most vulnerable people such as Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

″What I’m worried about is that we have hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian children that are at risk of losing their learning," Chaiban said.

More than 2,300 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes, nearly 75% of them over the last month, according to the Health Ministry. In the last three weeks, more than 100 children were killed and over 800 were wounded, Chaiban said.

He said displaced children are crammed into overcrowded shelters where three or four families can live in a classroom separated by a plastic sheet, and where 1,000 people can share 12 toilets. Not all of them work.

Many displaced families have set up tents along roads or on public beaches.

Most displaced children have experienced so much violence, including the sounds of shelling or gunshots, that they cower at any loud noise, Chaiban said.

Then there is “evacuation orders upon evacuation orders. We’re at the beginning, and already there’s been a profound impact,” he said.

The escalation has also put over 100 primary health care facilities out of service, while 12 hospitals are either no longer working or partially functional.

Water infrastructure has also come under attack. In the last three weeks, 26 water stations providing water to almost 350,000 people have been damaged, Chaiban said. UNICEF is working with local authorities to repair them.

He called for civilian infrastructure to be protected. And he appealed for a ceasefire in Lebanon and in Gaza, saying there needs to be political will and a realization that the conflict cannot be resolved through military means.

“What we must do is make sure that this stops, that this madness stops, that there’s a ceasefire before we get to the kind of destruction and pain and suffering and death that we’ve seen in Gaza,” Chaiban said.

With so many needs, he said, the emergency response appeal for $108 million in Lebanon has only been 8% funded three weeks into the escalation.