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'Near Daily' Israeli Assaults on Lebanon Have Become Non-News for Western Media Belén Fernández ([link removed])


BBC: Israeli air strikes hit southern Lebanon

This same headline the BBC (9/18/25 ([link removed]) ) used could run nearly every day.

The Israeli military unleashed ([link removed]) a large wave of air strikes on densely populated towns in South Lebanon on Thursday, September 18—although you’d never know it from the Western corporate media, who have increasingly lost interest in reporting on Israel’s unceasing war on its northern neighbor. This proceeds unabated in spite of a ceasefire ([link removed]) , brokered by the United States and France, that ostensibly took hold last November. Prior to Thursday’s strikes, area residents were given an hour ([link removed]) to evacuate.

The BBC (9/18/25 ([link removed]) ) was one of the few corporate outlets that managed to find a bit of space for these events, under the headline, "Israeli Air Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon." The outlet noted that

an Israeli military spokesman said the targets were infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah and in response to the group’s attempts to re-establish activities in the area. He provided no evidence.

The piece also explained that Israel “has carried out air strikes on people and places it says are linked to Hezbollah almost every day, despite a deal that ended the war with the group in November.”

Reuters (9/18/25 ([link removed]) ) managed an even shorter writeup—and took Israel’s word for it in the headline: “Israel Attacks Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon.”

No casualties were reported in these particular attacks, but the fiery spectacle naturally sent a whole lot of people fleeing in terrorized panic. The fact that such terrorism by the state of Israel transpires “almost every day” is perhaps part of the reason the media have largely relegated it to the realm of non-news.

Another part of the reason might be that outlets are too busy serving as apologists (FAIR.org, 4/11/25 ([link removed]) , 4/25/25 ([link removed]) , 6/6/25 ([link removed]) ) for the ongoing US-backed genocide ([link removed]) in the nearby Gaza Strip, which Israel launched in October 2023, and which has thus far officially killed ([link removed]) more than 65,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children—although this is likely a grave underestimate ([link removed]) .


** 'Along the border'
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Baffler: Fortress Beirut

US Ambassador Elizabeth Richard (Baffler, 8/19/25 ([link removed]) ) said the new embassy sends a "strong message" to Lebanon that "we intend to continue the spirit of cooperation and partnership that has defined our journey together for 200 years."

It was the momentum of this very genocide—and the accompanying astronomical increase ([link removed]) in America’s already-astronomical financial and military assistance to Israel—that spurred Israel to once again go after Lebanon (pardon, “Hezbollah infrastructure”). Between October 2023 and November 2024, Israel killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon and injured nearly 17,000 (Al Jazeera, 8/7/25 ([link removed]) ).

In the seven months following the “ceasefire” agreement, another 250 people were killed, as the New York Times (7/9/25 ([link removed]) ) acknowledged in one of its sporadic reports on Israel’s “near-daily strikes,” while also acknowledging that the Israelis had “held onto five positions along the border in violation of the agreement.” Had the paper wanted to be precise, it might have specified that these five positions are not simply “along the border,” but rather entirely within Lebanese territory.

Speaking of occupying Lebanese territory, it bears mentioning that the US is currently wrapping up construction of a gigantic fortress ([link removed]) in the hills overlooking Beirut, which will soon serve as the country’s new embassy. It “dwarfs any government facility in Lebanon,” as observed by Lebanese journalist Habib Battah in an article for MERIP (4/10/24 ([link removed]) ).

Boasting a trapezoidal swimming pool and buffed marble courtyard, the “19-structure ziggurat” also comprises a “labyrinth of megalithic blast walls emerging from deep excavation pits.” In other words, it’s the perfect setting for the US to continue strong-arming Lebanon into disarming Hezbollah, which, in addition to being one of Israel’s pet nemeses, has long been a thorn in the side of US empire, complicating America’s pursuit of regional hegemony.

And while Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is fully on board ([link removed]) with the disarmament plan and the handing over of Hezbollah’s weapons to the Lebanese army, he warned ([link removed]) in the aftermath of Thursday’s air strikes that the “silence of the states sponsoring the ceasefire agreement is a dangerous failure that encourages these attacks.” It is hardly a stretch to add that media silence similarly encourages such aggression, adding an extra layer to the impunity Israel already knows so well.

Given that Hezbollah is the only force in Lebanese history that has proved capable of defending the country ([link removed]) from Israeli predations, pretending that Israel isn’t continuously bombing Lebanon during a “ceasefire” also seems like a pretty good way of denying that there is any further need for Hezbollah. The Lebanese army, for its part, has not once managed to protect the nation from its bellicose neighbor to the south—a failure directly related to the US's longtime “security cooperation ([link removed] U.S.%2DLAF partnership builds,stabilizing force against regional threats.) ” with Lebanon’s armed forces.

When corporate media outlets do find themselves obliged to document Israeli strikes on Lebanon, this is done in typically decontextualized fashion. Hezbollah are generally understood to be the “bad guys”; rarely is it mentioned that the group owes its very existence ([link removed]) to the 1982 Israeli invasion ([link removed]) of Lebanon, greenlit by the US ([link removed]) , that killed tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians, and occurred in the context of a brutal 22-year Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.


** 'Governments have been largely silent'
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IDF post on X about attack on journalists

Given the scant coverage of Israeli attacks in the region, following the IDF's X account ([link removed]) can be informative—if you understand that when it says "military targets...responsible for distributing propaganda messages in the media and psychological terror," it means "journalists" (CPJ, 9/19/25 ([link removed]) ).

On Sunday, September 21, there was a relative flurry of corporate media activity after reports emerged ([link removed]) that four of the five people killed in an Israeli drone strike on the South Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil—three of whom were children—were US citizens. The four got top billing, for example, in the CNN headline “Four US Citizens Killed, Including Three Children, in Israeli Strike on Lebanon, Says Lebanese Government,” with the fifth, non-American victim banished to the text of the article (9/21/25 ([link removed]) ). CNN has now updated the headline as follows: “Five Killed in Israeli Strike on Lebanon, But Claim Some Were US Citizens Is Being Disputed.”

Indeed, the frequent selectivity of media coverage means it is sometimes easier to keep up with Israel’s activities in Lebanon by checking the Israeli military’s English-language X account ([link removed]) —although the content must first be translated from Israel-speak about “terrorists,” “precision strikes” and so forth.

On Thursday, the same day as the underreported attacks on South Lebanon—and one year and one day after Israel detonated personal electronic devices across the country in an unprecedented terrorist attack ([link removed]) , killing 12 and wounding thousands—the army’s X account broadcast ([link removed]) another attack on eastern Lebanon that was unreported by the corporate media.

The next day, Friday, there was so much news out of Lebanon that the X post ([link removed]) required bullet points, including one registering that “a Hezbollah ‘Radwan Force’ terrorist was eliminated in Tebnine, southern Lebanon.”

Bullet points were incidentally also necessitated the previous week when Israel slaughtered 31 journalists ([link removed]) in air strikes on Yemen—another of the no fewer than six countries that Israel managed to attack in the span of 72 hours ([link removed]) . The X version ([link removed]) of this particular event began by claiming that the Israelis had “struck military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime in the areas of Sanaa and Al Jawf in Yemen.”

As the Washington Post (9/19/25 ([link removed]) ) noted, the Israeli army “did not respond to a request for evidence of military activity at the site” where the journalists were struck. But why bother presenting evidence when you are never, ever held accountable? Even the Post found it worth remarking that “governments have been largely silent on the Israeli strike.”


** 'Raising fears for truce'
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NYT: Israel Launches New Ground Incursion in Lebanon, Raising Fears for Truce

The New York Times (7/9/25 ([link removed]) ) expresses "fear for truce" that it reports has been violated by Israel on a "near-daily" basis—but puts the onus on Hezbollah to disarm "amid fears of a wider war."

As for intermittent media silence on Lebanon, one effect of this is to normalize Israel’s unending war on the country. And yet sometimes it does have to be talked about at length, as in the aforementioned New York Times article (7/9/25 ([link removed]) ) acknowledging Israel’s “near-daily strikes” that ran under the headline “Israel Launches New Ground Incursion in Lebanon, Raising Fears for Truce.” No kidding.

This article was occasioned by the visit to Beirut of US special envoy Tom Barrack, who was set to receive the Lebanese government’s response to the “road map” to Hezbollah’s disarmament. The Times reported: “Just hours before Mr. Barrack’s visit, Israel launched a wave of airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon,” while the “announcement of renewed Israeli ground operations came shortly after” his arrival. Following his meeting with President Aoun, Barrack nonetheless declared himself “unbelievably satisfied” with Lebanon’s response to the disarmament plan.

Fast forward to September 18 and the Reuters (9/18/25 ([link removed]) ) nod to the South Lebanon air strikes, which includes this detail:

The Lebanese army warned on Thursday that Israeli attacks and violations risked hampering its deployment in the south, and could block the implementation of its plan to end Hezbollah’s armed presence south of the Litani River.

Which makes one wonder if perhaps an end to the war on Lebanon isn’t what Israel wants at all.
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