Israel’s growing war with Hezbollah is traumatizing Lebanon. There’s only one path to peace

Israel’s remote detonation of thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies has set off a series of escalations leading to the deadliest day of Israeli airstrikes against Lebanon in nearly two decades.

But while many Western politicians, analysts and media outlets were fixated on the novelty of an attack that seemed to be pulled from the pages of a spy thriller — expressing amazement at Israeli intelligence’s success in planting the explosive devices among militia members — they largely ignored the sheer terror thousands of Lebanese civilians experienced during the explosions that shook crowded neighborhoods over two days last week. Lebanon is a country that has suffered through decades of war and trauma, including an ongoing economic collapse and the 2020 Beirut port explosion.

The booby-trapped pagers and handheld radios, which had apparently been rigged with explosives before being shipped to Lebanon, killed at least 37 people and injured more than 3,000. The blasts were followed by a dramatic escalation on Thursday, when Israeli forces carried out the most intense airstrikes on southern Lebanon in nearly a year. The next day, an Israeli airstrike leveled two buildings in southern Beirut, killing at least 45 — including three children — and injuring dozens. The attack killed two senior Hezbollah commanders and 12 other militia members who were apparently meeting underneath one of the buildings.