Israel has pummeled Lebanon with an unprecedented airstrike campaign in less than three weeks, killing over 1,400 people, injuring nearly 7,500âŻothers and displacing more than one million people from their homes, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
The bombardment, which Israel says is targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the country, marks the worldâs âmost intense aerial campaignâ outside of Gaza in the last two decades, according to the conflict monitoring group Airwars.
Israelâs strikes are occurring at âa level and intensity that Israelâs own allies just simply would not have carried out in the last 20 years,â Emily Tripp, director of the UK-based group, told CNN. She pointed to the United States-led military campaign against ISIS in 2017, where, at the height of the battle for Raqqa â the terror groupâs de facto capital â 500 munitions were deployed in a single day.
Over the course of two days, on September 24 and September 25, the Israel military said it used 2,000 munitions and carried out 3,000 strikes.
In comparison, for most of Americaâs 20-year war in Afghanistan, the US carried out less than 3,000 strikes a year, barring the first year of the invasion, where around 6,500 strikes were carried out â according to data from Airwars analyzed by CNN.
âThis isnât normal,â Tripp said of both the scale and size of Israelâs strikes on Lebanon. Â While Israelâs air campaign is extremely âunusual,â Tripp said its assault on Gaza over the last year â where nearly 60% of buildings are estimated to have been damaged from Israeli strikes â have normalized such mass assaults. (x)
