Instead, it has taken a far more troubling turn, evolving into a war on Lebanon. For days, Israel had persisted in striking Southern Lebanon on the pretext of hitting positions belonging to Hizbullah. Then, without warning, it launched a sweeping assault on the Lebanese capital, Beirut. On the first day, it struck a building in an upscale neighbourhood, far removed from Hizbullah’s strongholds in the south, killing 280 unarmed civilians and injuring dozens more. On the second day, another 80 were killed, in addition to many wounded.
This escalation came at a moment when Washington had just announced a ceasefire in its war with Iran and the beginning of a two-week truce. Why, then, did Israel violate that truce? One explanation offered is that Lebanon was not included in the ceasefire agreement, which was said to concern Iran alone. Yet Pakistan, one of the mediating parties, has asserted that Lebanon was indeed part of the arrangement. Even if Lebanon were excluded, does that justify striking it in defiance of international law and established norms?
Was Israel, then, seeking an alternative front, acting as a state unable to disengage from war, compelled to open a new battlefield the moment another falls silent? This interpretation may carry some weight. Yet it would be equally wrong to overlook what appear to be longstanding Israeli ambitions in Lebanon. The recent attacks, and Israel’s ability to extend its reach towards the Litani River, only reinforce such concerns. Southern Lebanon has long figured, in certain ideological narratives, as part of a broader expansionist vision.
This vision, famously invoked by Yasser Arafat before the United Nations, when he pointed to symbols on Israeli currency, imagines a territorial expanse stretching beyond Palestine and Jordan into parts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Within this framework, a belief takes hold, however speculative, that an occupying force which has entrenched its control over Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights could extend such control further into Southern Lebanon and perhaps beyond, advancing incrementally from one territory to the next.
Such a trajectory, whether dismissed as ideological rhetoric or taken as strategic intent, raises a pressing and unavoidable question: where is the Arab response commensurate with the scale of what many perceive as enduring and deeply troubling expansionist plans?
* A version of this article appears in print in the 23 April, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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