Lebanon fears Gaza-like carnage as Israel ramps up airstrikes

BEIRUT, Sept 27 (Reuters/AP/Al Jazeera): When she first heard about the evacuation warnings Israel was sending to residents of Lebanon, Aline Naser's thoughts immediately turned to Gaza.

For the past year, the 26-year-old Beirut resident has been following with horror the reports about besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip ordered to move from one place to the other, fleeing to "humanitarian zones" only to be bombed and ordered to leave again.

The Israeli calls for Lebanese citizens to evacuate ahead of a widening air campaign, delivered via mobile phone alerts, calls and leaflets this week, seemed chillingly familiar.

"It's definitely something on the back of my mind, and we don't really know where exactly is safe," she said.

Almost a year after the start of its war in Gaza, Israel has turned its focus on Lebanon, significantly ratcheting up its campaign against its archenemy Hezbollah. Among many in Lebanon, there is fear that Israel's military operations in Lebanon would follow the same Gaza playbook: Evacuation orders, mass displacement and overwhelming airstrikes. Israel says its strikes target Hezbollah weapons sites and militants.

There are key differences between Gaza and Lebanon and how Israel has so far conducted its operations, which it says aim to push back Hezbollah from the border so that tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah's rocket attacks can return to their homes. Although it has said it is preparing for a possible ground operation, Israel has so far not sent troops into Lebanon.

Still, there are fears that Israel's actions in Gaza, including the use of overwhelming and what rights groups and the United Nations have described as disproportionate force, would be repeated in Lebanon. Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues.

On Monday, Israel struck 1,600 targets across Lebanon, killing 492 people and wounding 1,645, and causing a massive wave of displacement as thousands fled from south Lebanon north. It was a staggering one-day toll that shocked a nation used to war. It was by far the deadliest barrage since the monthlong 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, when an estimated 1,000 people in Lebanon were killed.

Throughout the day, the Israeli military sent warnings to residents to immediately evacuate in anticipation of the strikes and to stay away from places where Hezbollah stores weapons - something most would have no way of knowing.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the United States for its continuing support for Israel's war on Gaza and urged the international community to stop supplying weapons to Israel.

"This madness cannot continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people," he told the 193-member General Assembly on Thursday, in his first address to the chamber since Israel launched the assault last October in response to an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas. Abbas singled out Washington, saying it continues to provide diplomatic cover and weapons to Israel despite the mounting death toll in Gaza, where Israeli attacks have killed at least 41,534 people since October, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

At least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on Israeli statistics, and around 250 others were taken captive.

Abbas accused the US of allowing Israel's assault to continue by repeatedly vetoing UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. "We regret that the United States, the largest democracy in the world, obstructed three times draft resolutions of the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire," Abbas said. "The US alone stood and said, 'No, the fighting is going to continue,'" he said. Washington is a key Israeli ally and supplies it with billions of dollars worth of military aid annually.

The US, along with Qatar and Egypt, has also been working unsuccessfully on efforts to broker a ceasefire to end the war and secure the release of dozens of hostages held by Palestinian groups in Gaza.

Abbas also laid out a 12-point proposal for Gaza after the war is over. He called for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, without the establishment of buffer zones or the seizure of any part of Gaza. He said the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, should govern post-war Gaza as part of a Palestinian state, a vision that Israel rejects.