From targeting journalists and health workers to forcibly displacing over a million people, here’s how Israel is carrying out its genocidal Gaza playbook to kill, destroy, and occupy parts of Lebanon.
Reposted from Zeteo, March 31, 2026
Israel isn’t hiding it. In the last month, its far-right government has been explicitly clear that it plans to do to southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut what it did to Gaza.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has warned that Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh will soon look “like Khan Younis,” a city in Gaza that Israel has left almost completely uninhabitable.
Defense Minister Israel Katz has said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Israeli military to destroy the infrastructure near Lebanon’s border as it did in Rafah and Beit Hanoun, two cities in Gaza that Israel completely decimated.
We’re already seeing exactly how Israel’s plan is playing out. With the death toll already at more than 1,260, here are seven ways Israel is using its genocidal Gaza playbook to kill, decimate communities, and take over parts of Lebanon while flaunting international law in the process.
1. Killing Journalists
Over the weekend, Israel killed three Lebanese journalists – Fatima Ftouni, her brother Mohammed Ftouni, and Ali Shuaib – in targeted strikes on their vehicle, which was reportedly clearly marked as press. As it’s done in Gaza, where it’s killed over 250 Palestinian journalists, Israel attempted to justify its attack by claiming one of the reporters, Shuaib, was a militant.
But also, as it’s done after killing journalists in Gaza, Israel offered no tangible proof. Hezbollah rejected Israel’s claim that the journalist was part of its elite Rawdan Force. In an extremely rare admission, Israel told Fox it had photoshopped a photo showing Shuaib in a military uniform. “Unfortunately there isn’t really a picture of it, it was photoshopped,” the Israeli military said.
Israel, of course, said nothing of Fatima and Mohammed Ftouni.
2. Targeting Health Workers and Infrastructure
Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed more than 1,700 health workers across Gaza in what UN experts have labeled a “medicide.” We’re now witnessing another medicide take place in Lebanon.
Lebanese officials say that in just the last four weeks, Israel has killed more than 50 healthcare workers, targeted scores of ambulances and emergency service workers, and forced five hospitals to close, including, as the UN points out, four with maternity wards. One hospital in the southern city of Tyre has been hit at least five times, according to Al Jazeera. Nine hospitals have been damaged, and more than 50 primary healthcare centers have been forced to close, per the UN.
Israel uses the same types of allegations it uses in Gaza to attempt to justify its actions. It claims Hezbollah is using ambulances and medical facilities for military purposes. Of course, as we know from Gaza, these claims are baseless (remember the “Hamas headquarters” Israel insisted was under Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza?)
Regardless, targeting healthcare facilities unless there’s definitive proof that they’re being used for military purposes renders such infrastructure protected under international law, experts say.
3. Genocidal Language
Just as we saw in the opening days of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli politicians and commentators are making zero effort to mask their genocidal rhetoric when it comes to Israel’s assault on Lebanon.
“The current war in Lebanon must end with a radical change, beyond the vanquishing of the terror group Hezbollah,” Smotrich has said, per Israeli media. “The Litani must be our new border with the state of Lebanon.”
Leaflets dropped by the Israeli military in Beirut said, “In light of the resounding success in Gaza, the New Reality Newspaper arrives in Lebanon,” in what experts have labeled a form of psychological warfare.
Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who infamously called Palestinians “animals” at the start of the Gaza war, urged Israel to “strike and eliminate everything that’s in Dahiyah, Baalbek, Tyre, Sidon, Nabatieh, everywhere,” referring to cities in Lebanon.
4. Forced ‘Evacuations’ and ‘Buffer Zones’
Since the start of its escalation in Lebanon in early March, Israel has issued so-called evacuation orders to more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon, including the entire area south of the Litani River. Like in Gaza, these orders effectively amount to ‘leave or risk being killed’ orders.
To be clear, Israel has a long history of invading southern Lebanon, forcing residents from their villages, and occupying large swaths of land. But as we know from the Gaza playbook, residents will not be allowed to return to their homes (or what exists of them), likely indefinitely.
In fact, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz made quite clear this week that Israel plans to occupy the area south of the Litani River, which is about 19 miles north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, even after the latest escalation ends.
Israel likes to call these areas “buffer zones” necessary for Israel’s security, but what the government is effectively doing is redrawing its country’s borders in its quest for ‘Greater Israel.’
5. Cutting Off Access to Water and Humanitarian Aid
Israel’s invasion and targeting of bridges over the Litani River connecting the south to the north is isolating nearly a tenth of Lebanese territory from the rest of the country – keeping anyone who fled from reaching their homes, but also cutting off access to necessary humanitarian aid for anyone who stayed, aid groups warn.
As we saw in Gaza, Israel is also targeting water and energy supplies. In some cases, such civilian infrastructure has been directly hit, and in other cases, it’s inaccessible due to Israeli forces’ presence in the area.
In the regions of Bekaa and Baalbek, air raids have compromised essential water reservoirs and pumping stations, eliminating access to clean water to residents in the “tens of thousands,” UNICEF said. Meanwhile, damage to roads and bridges also threatens medical access to citizens in outlying regions.
6. Human Shields
Israel’s favorite go-to phrase in an attempt to divert blame for killing scores of civilians is “human shields.” In the densely populated Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel repeatedly claims, is using civilian infrastructure and forcing residents to ignore “evacuation” orders. These claims have been repeatedly debunked, and report after report has shown it’s actually Israel who uses Palestinians as human shields.
Still, Israel, as it always does, is attempting to justify the rising death toll and the mass destruction of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon by accusing Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields.
It’s worth noting that Israel itself has often embedded in communities or set up operations near villages along its border with Lebanon, putting civilians in harm’s way.
7. White Phosphorus
Like it’s done in Gaza and previously in Lebanon, Israel is “unlawfully” using “artillery-fired white phosphorus munitions” over homes in southern Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said in early March, citing eight verified photos showing the substance being used over the town of Yohmor.
“White phosphorus is a chemical substance dispersed in artillery shells, bombs, and rockets that ignites when exposed to oxygen. It can set homes, agricultural areas, and other civilian objects on fire,” HRW wrote.
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There are, of course, significant differences between Lebanon and Gaza: for one, Israel doesn’t control all of Lebanon’s borders, meaning it can’t fully control what goes in or out, including aid, people, and information (Beirut has been a popular base for foreign journalists for decades).
But like in Gaza, Israel has been clear about what it plans to do in Lebanon – and like with Gaza, Western nations have largely turned a blind eye as it does it.
Zeteo is a media company and Substack newsletter founded by British American commentator Mehdi Hasan on April 15, 2024, after he quit MSNBC due to his talk show’s cancellation.
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