Just days after using a trebuchet to set fires to farmland across the southern Lebanon border, the Israeli military is looking to make fire even more of a weapon of war, striking several southern towns with phosphorous bombs.
The towns of Houla, Tallouseh, Adaisseh, and Kfar Kela were all reported hit, with civil defense forces out in forces across the area to try to keep the fires subsequently set under control.
This isn’t necessarily easy for firefighters, especially compared to the incidental fires which result from ordinary military strikes on both sides of the border. Used as incendiary devices, the phosphorous bombs tend to set fires that spread more quickly than ordinarily.
That has the potential to be another legal concern with Israel’s ongoing wars. The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons includes clauses that severely regulate the use of incendiary weapons. Though not outright illegal, they are meant to be banned in use against civilian populations.
Hezbollah responded with a flurry of rocket fire against Israeli troops gatherings along the border. It has yet to be confirmed, but Hezbollah says they believe they injured Israeli soldiers in some of the strikes.
Reports have the Biden Administration expressing increased worries about Israel’s repeated escalations in Lebanon, concerned that the United States will be dragged into the conflict. Britain had reportedly informed Lebanon that they believe Israel plans to start a war in mid-June.
Israel hasn’t commented on the timing of a war directly, but military brass and members of the war council have repeatedly emphasized their readiness for such a conflict, while presenting it as all but an inevitability.