“Middle East Escalation: Fears of the Next War”: More or less, this is the headline of most international headlines today. While humanity watches the grand celebration of the Paris Olympic Games and is “divided” whether the opening ceremony was “kitsch” or not!
Twelve children and teenagers aged between 10 and 20 were killed and others injured when a rocket fired from Lebanon hit a football pitch in the Druze town of Maidal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
In the celebration of Paris, massacres continue in the Middle East.
For the record, since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Golan Heights have been controlled by Israel, although the international community recognizes them as part of Syria. Since 1981, however, by decision of the Knesset, the area has been annexed by Israel.
The attack followed an Israeli raid on the village of Kfar Qila, near the Lebanon-Israel border, in which Hezbollah said four of its members were killed.
Israel blamed Hezbollah for the deadliest attack since fighting began in the country in October. Hezbollah denied it, but Israel said the attack was carried out by an Iranian-made Falaq-1 missile.
The deadly attack has already prompted unprecedented threats of Israeli retaliation, as the Israeli air force bombed southern Lebanon throughout the night.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has warned that the moment of all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon is approaching. Hezbollah will pay dearly for the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also warned. Lebanese Hezbollah itself has announced that it expects a heavy attack from Israel.
Almost 300 days after the start of the war in Gaza, where some 40,000 people have lost their lives, the specter of a new escalation, an all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, is already looming. Since last October, Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been fighting almost every day. At least 100 Lebanese civilians and some 360 Hezbollah men have been killed by Israeli army fire. There have also been several deaths on the Israeli side.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting on both sides of the border.
Around 11,000 Druze live in the Golan Heights, between Israel, Syria and Lebanon. Stateless from the beginning, followers of a cult that combines elements of Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism (they believe in the transmigration of souls and reincarnation), they – unlike other stateless peoples – have never had nationalist aspirations.
But now the fighting “could trigger a major conflagration that would plunge the entire region into unimaginable disaster,” UN officials warned. “What has happened could be the trigger for something we are worried about and have been trying to avoid for 10 months,” he said.
Biden administration official to Axios.
And all this at the time of the Paris Games and the calls for an Olympic Truce. Unfortunately, the legacy of the Ancient Greeks does not “fit” with the inhumane modern reality…