When Israel attacked an underground Hezbollah command center in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, last Friday, killing longtime secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, the civilian toll was enormous.
According to reports, Israeli jets dropped more than 80 2,000-pound “bunker-busting” bombs on targets with a destruction radius of 35 meters (115 feet). The strike that killed Nasrallah also brought down six residential buildings. Over the past two weeks, similar Israeli attacks have caused major damage to civilian infrastructure in Beirut and across Lebanon. The death toll in Lebanon has now surpassed 1,000 and one million people have fled their homes.
Israeli leaders urged the Lebanese people to stay away from danger and not become Hezbollah’s “human shields.” Such messages suggest that the killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure are unintended consequences of Israel’s conduct of the war.
In fact, targeting civilian lives is an established tactic of the Israeli military under the infamous “Dahiyeh Doctrine”.
Named after the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut, the doctrine entails large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure to put pressure on a hostile government or armed group, and was conceived against the backdrop of Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon.
At that time, Israeli forces launched devastating attacks on populated Dahiyeh and the rest of Lebanon. According to the Red Cross, more than 1,000 people died and 900,000 were displaced during the 34-day operation. Israeli forces destroyed or severely damaged the country’s entire civilian infrastructure, including airports, water reserves, sewage treatment plants, power plants, gas stations, schools, health centers, and hospitals. Additionally, 30,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged.
Experts said the tactic was a serious violation of international law and that targeting civilian infrastructure, justified or not, was a war crime. But Israeli authorities insist this is a legitimate war tactic and helps deter future attacks by enemies against Israel.
Two years after the devastating 2006 operation against Lebanon, Gadi Eisenkot, commander of Israel’s Northern Command, insisted that Israel would continue to use this strategy in future conflicts.
“What happened in (Dahiyeh)… “It will happen in every village where Israel has been shot,” he said. “We will apply disproportionate force there and cause great damage and destruction there. “From our perspective, this is not a civilian village but a military base.”
“This is not a recommendation,” Eisenkot said. This is the plan. And it was approved.”
And the plan was actually followed. In the years that followed, this doctrine continued to be implemented in Gaza, but not in Lebanon.
For example, this doctrine was explicitly applied during Israel’s “Operation Mastermind,” which killed 1,400 Palestinians, including 300 children, in the Gaza Strip in 2008. The UN post-war fact-finding mission’s Goldstone report found that Israeli soldiers “deliberately inflicted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment on civilians, including women and children, in order to terrorize, intimidate and humiliate.” It also detailed that the Israeli military systematically destroyed civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including mills, farms, wastewater treatment plants, water utilities, and residential buildings. In fact, the report found that Israeli soldiers engaged in “the systematic destruction of civilian buildings during the last three days of the operation, despite being aware of the imminent withdrawal.”
Israel’s 2012 Operation “Pillar of Defense” was a similar operation targeting civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces destroyed or severely damaged 382 civilian residences. This included an airstrike on a three-storey house in the al-Nasser neighborhood that killed 12 people, including five children. Israeli forces also destroyed or damaged bridges, sports facilities, banks, hospitals, media outlets, farms and mosques.
In 2014, “Operation Protective Edge” killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, including 1,400 civilians, in the Gaza Strip. This operation also followed the Dahiyeh Doctrine. In violation of international law, Israeli rockets and mortars “targeted civilian buildings and infrastructure, including schools and homes, causing direct damage to civilian property worth nearly $25 million.” A total of 18,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. As part of this operation, Israeli forces also attacked Gaza’s water, sanitation, electricity and medical infrastructure.
Of course, the harshest exposure of the Dahiyeh Doctrine was Israel’s ongoing campaign of genocide in the Gaza Strip. Since October 7, Israel’s apparent strategy of targeting Gaza’s civilians and infrastructure with all its military might to stop Hamas has resulted in a catastrophe comparable to the Nakba of 1948. In just one year, the Israeli army completely destroyed all infrastructure and infrastructure. The institutional framework for Palestinian civilian life in the Gaza Strip.
Now, in a tragic turn of events, the Dahiyeh Doctrine has returned to Beirut’s Dahiyeh, the very neighborhood where it was originally conceived. Israel continues its airstrikes against Dahiyeh and wider Lebanon, as well as launching a ground invasion. More than 1,000 people have been killed, entire regions have been devastated, and there is no end in sight to what the Israeli military says is a “limited, localized, targeted” operation. Israel is once again implementing the Dahiyeh Doctrine, waging war against entire civilian populations without regard for international law or human rights.
The fact that Israel has been allowed to pursue its military objective of mass destruction of civilian life with complete impunity, first in Lebanon, then in the Gaza Strip, and then again in Lebanon, is a grim reminder of just how many crimes the people of this region have committed. It reminds me. Devalued and dehumanized. Their lives seem so insignificant that, rather than being condemned as an outright assault on international law and morality, the “Dahiye Doctrine” appears to have been accepted as a legitimate path forward by those leading the international community – Israel’s Western allies and backers. This is to achieve regional stability.
Of course, the majority of the world is very critical of Israel’s attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon. However, Israel’s Western partners continue to support these efforts both materially and ideologically. Israeli authorities have given the nod to “de-escalate” even when they outrageously claim they are “escalating” their war effort, which means killing and injuring civilians and creating uninhabitable conditions.
Israel’s repeated and open use of the Dahiyeh Doctrine against diverse ethnic groups over a two-decade period without official sanctions is further confirmation that the same countries and leaders who claim to be guarantors of the liberal order are guilty of violating the Dahiyeh Doctrine. Fundamental spirit.
Tragically, the hypocrisy of the leaders of the world community means that Israel has no reason to consign this cruel, illegal and inhumane strategy to the dustbin of history, now or in the foreseeable future. Until the public around the world rises up and pressures their leaders to end Israel’s excesses, civilians in Lebanon, Palestine and throughout the region will continue to suffer and die under the Dahiyeh Doctrine.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
