Israeli forces committed a new massacre on Tuesday, striking the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near Saida and killing at least 13 civilians, in a flagrant violation of the November 2024 ceasefire agreement.

The airstrike, which targeted a populated parking lot within the camp, marks the first direct aggression of its kind against Ain al-Hilweh since the truce was established. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the death toll has risen to 13, with numbers pending finalization as rescue operations continue.

This attack capped a day of relentless violence, raising the total number of Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli forces on November 18 to 15. Earlier on Tuesday, separate Israeli drone strikes targeted vehicles in the southern towns of Blida and Bint Jbeil, claiming the lives of two more civilians.

The assault on Ain al-Hilweh is part of a broader and escalating campaign of Israeli aggression against Lebanon, which continues despite Beirut's documented compliance with the ceasefire provisions. The international community's failure to hold Israel accountable has fostered a climate of absolute impunity.

Israeli violence has been unrelenting over recent days, painting a grim picture of life in southern and eastern Lebanon. On November 17, Mohammad Shuweikh, the principal of Mansouri Public School, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the town in the Tyre district. This followed a provocative act on November 16, when an Israeli Merkava tank fired upon UNIFIL peacekeeping personnel near an Israeli-built position inside Lebanese territory, a move condemned by the UN force. Just days earlier, on November 13, an Israeli drone struck a vehicle in Toul, injuring one civilian, while warplanes bombed the western outskirts of Tayr Felsay in two separate strikes. The escalation began on November 10, when Israeli warplanes carried out three air raids on the Shaara Heights and the outskirts of Janta in the Bekaa region, simultaneously with a drone strike on a road in the Hermel area. This series of attacks was preceded on November 9 by the killing of two Lebanese citizens in separate Israeli drone strikes in the Nabatieh district.

One of the most chilling violations occurred recently when Israeli forces raided the municipality building in Blida. In an act that has been widely condemned as a war crime, occupation soldiers executed the town's mayor in his sleep, a direct attack on Lebanon's civil infrastructure and local governance.

This ongoing campaign of terror has created a state of perpetual fear for civilians across southern Lebanon, where no person or institution appears safe from targeting. The repeated strikes on vehicles, public figures, and now a dense refugee camp demonstrate a deliberate strategy to inflict maximum terror and disruption upon Lebanese life.

As the death toll mounts, the silence from international bodies tasked with protecting sovereignty and human rights rings increasingly hollow to the people of Lebanon, who continue to endure these violations of their land and their right to live in peace. (ILKHA)