Episode 344: Israel’s Dahiyeh Doctrine Returns to Lebanon with Paul Hefel-James

Today on The International Risk Podcast, we turn to Lebanon, where Israel’s invasion, the subsequent displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and political fracture are colliding in ways that could reshape Lebanon for years. As the conflict on the Lebanese front deepens, the questions are no longer just about ceasefires or border tensions, but about forced displacement, civilian survival, psychological warfare, the future of Hezbollah, and whether Lebanon is being pushed toward a far more dangerous breaking point. 

To help us make sense of it, I’m joined by Paul Hefel-James , a Beirut-based freelance journalist who reports on migration, refugees, conflict, and the humanitarian crisis across the Middle East. His previous publications include explorations of labour migration in Lebanon, Syrian archives and reconstruction and the displacement crisis during the Israel-Hezbollah war. His work has appeared in DAWN’s Democracy in Exile, New Internationalist and The Progressive. He is also the author of the Substack, Wayward Bound.

The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.

The International Risk Podcast is sponsored by Conducttr, a realistic crisis exercise platform. Conducttr offers crisis exercising software for corporates, consultants, humanitarian, and defence & security clients. Visit Conducttr to learn more.

Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. 

Transcript

I think there’s a real fear that this is going to last for a very long time, that we might not see a ceasefire the way that we saw two years ago, and that the war might never really end. Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organisations worldwide. And this episode is brought to you by Conductor.

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Please hit the subscribe or follow button now, and let’s jump in to today’s episode. Today on the International Risk Podcast, we turn to Lebanon, where Israel’s invasion, the subsequent displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and ongoing political fractures, are really colliding in ways that could shape Lebanon for years. As the conflict at the Lebanese front deepens, and questions no longer just about ceasefire or border detentions, but we’re really starting to get down into, and we need to get down into, what’s happening with the forced displacement, survival of civilians, the psychological warfare, the future of Hezbollah, and whether Lebanon is being pushed to yet another dangerous breaking point.

To help us make sense of what’s going on, I’m joined today by Paul Hefel-James. He’s a Beirut-based freelance journalist, who reports on migration, refugees, conflict, and the humanitarian crisis across the Middle East. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation with Paul today.

Paul, welcome to the International Risk Podcast. Thanks for having me on the show, Dominic. We’re about to you today, Paul.

I’m calling in from Beirut, been here the last few weeks. And what’s the situation there like today? Today, it’s been quieter. Beirut has borne less of the direct conflict in the last few days, but things are definitely ramping up in the south.

And I hear that from people who have made it to the capital over the last week. And obviously, you’re based in Beirut today. And it’s been, I think we’re just over the five-week mark now, as the conflict between Israel and the US and Iran has been going on.

And we’re about four weeks since missile strikes were first launched against the capital of Lebanon. And it’s changed so quickly and so dramatically. I mean, I was in Beirut myself about five weeks ago now.

And Beirut was in all its glory with nightclubs and foods and everything. And it was just shocking to see a few days later, after I left, how much it had dramatically changed. Israel has been targeting leadership from Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has fired rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for the killing of the supreme leader. Now, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, there’s been over 1,200 people killed in Lebanon since the start of March. And that’s about 120 children and about 80 women that have also been confirmed killed.

Can you tell us about what’s the atmosphere in the city like today? For anyone that knows Beirut, I mean, it’s just such a beautiful, fantastic city with so much culture and life. But, you know, when speaking to people like yourself and other friends and colleagues, it seems that life really has changed. Can you talk us through what’s life like in Beirut today? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, one thing to realise is after the ceasefire during the last war at the end of 2024, 2025 was really sort of the year where Lebanese started to rebuild, started to get back on track to an extent. And it felt like things were returning to the city. All that has completely changed, even in part of the city where I am now, which is East Beirut.

It’s very quiet. A lot of people have left, even though this is one of the safest areas in the capital. And I think there was anxiety in the weeks leading up to the conflict as we were watching Iran, but not many people that I spoke to ever expected Lebanon to be dragged back in.

But this is sadly not new. I mean, Lebanon’s no stranger to conflict with Israel. I mean, the latest escalation is less than two years after the 2023-2024 war.

There’s, of course, invasions from Israel into Lebanon in 2006, in 1982, in 1978. Many of them have been absolutely devastating on the country. And, of course, Lebanon suffered during the 2019 economic collapse.

We had the 2020 Beirut port explosion. I mean, there’s just been so many massive, massive issues that have been affecting the people of Lebanon. Does this feel like just a regular part of the tragic, difficult cycle? And are people conditioned to it? Or is this something different right now? You know, it’s interesting.

I think it’s both. In the first week of the war, I was visiting a lot of displacement shelters, talking to the people running them, talking to people who had fled and were now in public schools or in old storage warehouses or on the street. And the overwhelming sense was just fatigue.

Everybody has been doing this for so long, as you said, since October 2023, even before that as well. I think people are conditioned to live with it, but people were not given the chance to rebuild in between the previous ceasefire and the beginning of this war. So even though the shelter response and some of the emergency services are more prepared this time, but everybody is already operating from a much lower energy level because they’ve not been given the chance to get back on top of things to rebuild their lives, especially in the South, where a lot of the buildings that were destroyed and a lot of the housing stock that was destroyed was never replaced.

So I’ve even been to shelters where there are families there still sheltering from the previous war. Okay. Yeah, that’s really shocking.

So thanks for sharing those stories and what’s been happening at the moment, Paul. It’s overwhelming. And I think many of us, sadly, have become used to seeing Israel use this overwhelming, and I think it’s reasonable to say disproportionate force by Israel against civilian areas.

We’ve seen this in Palestine. But you’ve also written about the Dahiyeh Doctrine. I mean, this was articulated from what I understand from an Israeli general back in 2006.

But for our listeners that might not be familiar with this, can you explain what this doctrine is and how it’s shaping Israel’s military strategy today? This was first publicly described in 2006 during Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah. They used the word disproportionate themselves. Proportionality is one of the features of the law of armed conflict.

It’s supposed to ensure that you don’t have massive destruction in response to smaller attacks and risk unnecessarily escalating hostilities. But Israel has made disproportionality a feature of its military strategy, wherever that is, not only in Lebanon. But the general in question, Gadi Eisenkot, when he was talking about the southern suburbs of Beirut, Dahiyya, where a lot of the Shia population lives and where a lot of popular support for Hezbollah is, he talked about applying disproportionate force, levelling civilian infrastructure, and said that he is not treating it as a civilian village, but as a military base.

And we’ve seen that come back in full force this time, where Israel is targeting anybody who has even the vaguest affiliations to Hezbollah. And the thing to understand about Hezbollah too is it’s a political party, but in many parts of the country, it functions as a state-like structure. So in the Bekaa Valley in the south and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah or its affiliated entities are the ones providing microfinance loans, providing healthcare, providing security.

And so people rely on these entities, including the Islamic Health Authority, its news channels and its banks and gas stations to get by like they would for any other kind of infrastructure. Israel seems to believe that this time, if they target enough civilian areas, destroy all these other structures around the military wing of the group, then they’ll be able to cut off support. But it’s coming at an extremely high cost for civilians.

One example is Israel has destroyed at least seven bridges so far over the Latani River in southern Lebanon. And there are still tens of thousands of people stuck in cities south of that river who are now not able to move north or get to safety because all the roads have been destroyed. I mean, if I think back to my studies or my work in international law, this sounds a lot like guilty by geography, where entire communities are treated as legitimate targets.

And there is nowhere in international law or laws of armed conflict that allows entire communities to be treated as legitimate targets because of who’s providing them with their services. So if that’s the case, how is Israel able to continue this doctrine for nearly the last 20 years and continues to do it today? You know, geography is really interesting in Lebanon because it’s so political. A lot of places are divided along sectarian lines.

You have Shia areas, Christian areas, Sunni areas, Druze areas. I think what Israel is trying to do is break that association for the Shia community, where they want to remove them from the territory where they tend to settle and break the power base for Hezbollah. But as you said, this is just making tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people guilty just by pure fact of where they are.

It’s important to see this current conflict and these tactics as a continuation of what Israel has done in the occupied Palestinian territories as well. They have had a captive population in Gaza since at least 2006 and 2007 when they started enforcing blockade on the Gaza Strip. And they’ve always been able to, partly through technology, collecting data, artificial intelligence, training these models on that population, refining their targeting.

And they’ve seen that they’ve been able to get away with human rights abuses, war crimes, and it doesn’t seem like anybody is willing to step up and stop it. This is a broader feature of the war on Iran as well, where the US and the Israeli Air Force are targeting civilian infrastructure in Tehran and other parts of the country. And nobody is able to punish them for it, especially because the United States is a party to the conflict as well.

And we’re seeing this mass displacement on really a staggering scale. I mean, there’s been, from what I’ve read, 1.2 million people, roughly a fifth of Lebanon’s population have been displaced by the Israeli Defence Forces forced evacuation orders for Southern Lebanon, originally just to the Litani River, but now it’s moved even further north. As you mentioned, there’s been countless bridges destroyed.

We’ve seen the southern suburbs of Beirut receive evacuation orders. We’ve seen the Eastern Beqa, which is just an absolutely beautiful area, also facing evacuation orders. And this is on top of the fact that Lebanon is already hosting 1.3 million Syrian refugees and about 200,000 Palestinian refugees.

And I think actually Lebanon is considered the country that hosts the most refugees globally per capita, and now its own population has been massively displaced. You know, where are people feeling it? And what does this look like on the grounds where you are? We’ve never seen evacuation warnings on this scale before. In the past, the Israeli-Arabic spokesperson has issued statements that show what the IDF may be targeting and then advises people to flee the building surrounding it within a certain radius.

But this time we’ve seen a blanket evacuation warning that has been repeated day after day for the entire Dahiya suburb, everything in the south up to the Latani River at first, and then they expanded that to the Zahrani River further north as well, and different villages in the Beqa Valley. All of these territories that have been forcibly evacuated amount to almost 10% of the total land mass of Lebanon. So the scale is unimaginable.

And during the first week of the conflict, about three or four days in, I was on a reporting trip to Baalbek in the Beqa Valley and saw some of the strike sites that had been hit, attended a funeral for a family that had been killed in their home. And as I was driving back, the evacuation warnings for the Dahiya suburb came in, and about an hour after that, the villages in the Beqa as well. So we were coming back over the mountains and just seeing lights in Beirut, streams of traffic going the other way.

When you go to some of these places that have been evacuated now, things are mainly empty. The thing about displacement too is it’s unequally applied. You know, you need a certain ability to be able to leave, to find somewhere else to stay, which is the huge problem currently.

The government has set up shelters in public schools, but that only accounts for about 15% of the total displaced people. So the rest is left to other organisations to privately handle that, NGOs, and the private rental market, which is, I think, very underreported on. You know, people need money to be displaced and people who can’t afford to go stay with family or don’t have the space for that or can’t afford to pay rent that is being heavily increased now are sleeping on the street.

And there are encampments along the Corniche, West Beirut, Martyr’s Square. Until recently, there were tents set up. And people have done this all before again.

Some of the same people I met in Martyr’s Square who were displaced, they had nothing but the clothes on their back and a blanket spread out on the ground. They said they were in the same spot two years ago. I mean, it’s just, it’s heartbreaking, really.

And I think the thing to remember is, if we really personalise this, that it’s not just the fact that you need to find somewhere to live. You need to find somewhere to live at the same time as 1.2 million other people are also looking for things. And as you said, whether it’s family spaces, whether it’s friends, whether it’s empty properties or rental properties, everyone is competing for the same area.

And we talked about the large refugee population. There’s also a large migrant population in Lebanon. And you talked about that unequal treatment.

And I wonder about how that’s starting to look on the ground. Because we all come from teams or tribes or family circles and expands out from there. But as these emergency shelters are being set up, and you talked about them only being able to accommodate 15% of the displaced population, I wonder how people are being prioritised.

And this is on the back of international aid contributions shrinking, especially after the Trump administration’s decision last year to terminate USAID operations in Lebanon, which were significant. And I can say personally, from work I’ve done over the last couple of decades in Lebanon, that USAID operations were lifesaving for so many people and brought so much goodwill towards America. But sadly, this has been terminated now.

So what sort of social hierarchies, what sort of dynamics are we seeing at these shelters and supports? I know you’ve worked in migrants and refugee settings before. So what are you seeing on the ground when it comes to how equal or unequal different groups and people are being treated? It’s very complicated and very unequal. Whenever you have displacement in Lebanon, you’re guaranteed to displace a bunch of different people, even though it may be Shia majority area, you’ve got migrant workers living there, you might have Syrian refugees, Palestinian refugees.

And so the thing that is happening to displaced people is all coming from the same source. But the way that that is experienced is vastly different. These shelters have been accepting Lebanese citizens.

And even though in the weeks leading up to the conflict, they were telling NGOs here that they were going to be open to all. In practise, that’s not what happened. And migrant workers were turned away from a lot of the official shelters and had to rely on other organisations who have taken them in churches and in other community spaces.

For refugees, a lot of whom live in camps, they may not even be able to leave and find somewhere else to live. A lot of Syrians have returned to the border. In the first week alone, it was 40,000 Syrians that travelled to the border crossing and went into Syria.

And that number doubled by the end of the second week. So people who have fled a regime to come here, look for protection, are now fleeing back to the country that they left. And that puts pressure on the border as well.

Syrian civil defence teams were set up on the other side trying to offer some kind of shelter and support. And then within Lebanon itself, because of how sectarian the geography is and the political clashes within the population, it raises the tensions hugely when you have big displaced population moving into Sunni areas in West Beirut or Christian areas in East Beirut. In West Beirut in particular, with the tent encampments along the seaside, there have been fights in the street.

One of the tents there was hit in an Israeli airstrike, killed the person in it, injured 30 plus people afterward. And it almost feels like it’s by design to associate the displaced population with greater targeting and greater violence. And I think Israel is conscious of that, if not planning that as part of its strategy.

And there are landlords who are now turning away renters who are displaced because they say, we don’t want the trouble here. And that’s in Beirut. I mean, in the South, it’s even more life or death.

There are Christian villages very close to the border that absorbed some of the displacement early on. Then they have been contacted directly by the Israelis and given a choice. They’ve been told, you can either continue sheltering displaced people or you can kick them out and your village will be spared.

These Christian villages in the South and the leaders of those villages are making the choice to move displaced people on and try and protect themselves. But that means that you’ve got a large Shia community that is being forced out of homes, out of apartment buildings and into areas where they’re not finding any safe harbour. I mean, the psychological impact must just be huge.

I mean, we’ve talked about the scale of this humanitarian crisis, but you’ve just been writing about this displacement isn’t just a byproduct of the war, but it’s actually a deliberate strategy. And of course, there’s the threat of stroking sectarian tensions, which Lebanon had a huge civil war back in the 70s and 80s, which obviously everyone is keen to avoid. But also there’s this impact on things that occur.

I mean, there’s about 14,000 pregnant women that have been displaced. And by some estimates, there’s 1,500 women that are expected to give birth within the next 30 days that are displaced, which is just obviously a huge stress on any family and any pregnant woman. But this physical destruction accompanying the psychological dimension, I think is huge.

You know, I remember in 2024 being in Hamra and for anyone that doesn’t know Beirut, Hamra is the equivalent of like Soho. It’s like the cool area with the bars and restaurants and galleries. It’s a fun place to be.

But if you were staying there in 2024, along with many other parts of Beirut, just this constant drones flying overhead and then when I’m hitting targets and some of them being there for surveillance, just kept everyone on edge 24 hours a day because it wasn’t clear. Is this just a surveillance drone or is this a drone that’s actually gonna target something, which meant that people are sleepless. You mentioned before we started recording about sonic booms and the impact that they have on.

And if you haven’t experienced one, absolutely shocking. And then almost this dystopian scene where thousands of leaflets are dropping over Beirut, urging citizens to inform on Hezbollah via QR codes or threatening that Lebanon will look like Gaza. So I just wonder, Paul, maybe on you personally to start with, but then also what you’re seeing with people that you’re speaking to, what is the psychological impact on you and people in Beirut? Yeah, it is shocking.

I mean, you hear the bombardments, the heavier ones. On the very first night, it woke me up. They hit Dahiya with at least 15 strikes and just this really rhythmic pounding that you feel.

But the sonic booms, they feel like they’re right outside your window. They rattle the doors and it changes the way that you react to anything. There are local news channels who publish frequent updates on WhatsApp for the population to follow along and see what’s happening.

And they’ve started writing when it’s a thunderclap so that people know that it’s the weather and not another bombing. And it can be hard to tell the difference between what’s a dorm, what’s a jet, and what’s a drone strike. And it’s calculated.

There’s no reason to fly military jets over civilian areas low enough, breaking the sound barrier, except to scare people as they’re trying to fall asleep. The leaflets were really dystopian. There were thousands all over Hamra that fell, as you mentioned.

One of them was asking people to inform on Hezbollah and become part of the Israeli war machine in a way. And the other was the consequence of if that doesn’t happen, which is they had printed a picture of what parts of Gaza looked like and titled it the new reality. And they’re drawing comparisons to Khan Yunis when they’re talking about the Dahiya suburbs.

They’re talking about Lebanon as the next Gaza. So this is wilful psychological warfare on the Israeli side. You mentioned Gaza and what that looks like.

We’ve seen increasing comparisons on Israeli TV and from the media in Israel quoting Israeli finance ministers, defence minister, saying things like, and when referring to the forced evacuation orders, that very soon parts of Lebanon will resume Gaza, referring to cities that have been completely destroyed and completely levelled. There’s also been the call for Israeli annexation of Southern Lebanon, saying that the new Israeli border must be the Latani River, which is well within Lebanon’s territory. And hearing that other people in the Knesset, which is Israel’s parliament, suggesting that Southern Lebanon should become part of Israel is really quite concerning.

I mean, we’ve seen similar actions that Israel has taken in Syria, where they’ve taken parts of Syrian territory. But I think taken together, these statements points this strategy of both depopulation, but also territorial annexation. What does this mean? Is this something that people in Lebanon are shrugging their shoulders about? Or is there something that they can do? And does this mean if this is a deliberate strategy by Israel to take parts of Palestine, both in Gaza, in the West Bank, parts of Syria, and now parts of Southern Lebanon? I think there’s a real fear that this is going to last for a very long time, that we might not see a ceasefire the way that we saw two years ago, and that the war might never really end.

And part of that is, there’s a lot of talk about buffer zones and comparisons to the yellow line in Gaza. It seems like the Israelis are intent on doing the same thing in Southern Lebanon, pushing up so far and depopulating that entire area and turning it into military outposts, ostensibly to protect Israelis who are living in the north of the country. But it doesn’t seem realistic.

It doesn’t seem like there’s a magic amount of territory you can take before you’ve guaranteed your own security. If anything, I think the fear is that a long-term occupation of the south will strengthen Hezbollah, because Hezbollah is the only group in Lebanon that is resisting the Israeli invasion. The Lebanese Armed Forces have had to withdraw from their positions in the south.

They’re not able to directly engage the Israeli military. So I think at the beginning of the conflict, there were reports about Hezbollah dragging Lebanon back into war, and the way that this has damaged their standing. And I think those are overblown a bit.

We’re not seeing any serious splintering of the support for the group. And if anything, a longer-term Israeli invasion and occupation strengthens their case as for why they should not be disarmed and why they should be able to continue fighting back. So if this turns into a long-term thing, I think it’ll be even harder to dismantle the group, even after government took an unprecedented step in the first week of the conflict and outlawed Hezbollah’s activities.

It’s just that the enforcement hasn’t been there to follow up on it. And certainly the public will might not be there if Israel continues. And Paul, I’ll take this opportunity to remind our listeners that if they prefer to watch our podcast, the International Whiz Podcast is always available on YouTube.

So please go to YouTube and search for the International Whiz Podcast, and please do subscribe to our content. It really is important for our long-term success. Now, Paul, Oxfam just issued a statement saying that Israel is using the, to quote them, Gaza playbook in Lebanon, and that’s about systematically targeting civilians, targeting civilian infrastructure, targeting emergency services personnel, targeting aid workers in order to maximise disruption and increase fear amongst the civilian population.

At the time of recording this podcast, 53 health personnel, including a teenage paramedic, have been killed. 120 health personnel have been injured. There’s been strikes on ambulances, on healthcare facilities.

And of course, this is occurring at a time when healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals are needed more than ever. You know, talk to me, the targeting of paramedics, the targeting of doctors and nurses and ambulance and civilian infrastructure, you know, what are the implications? And how do you interpret incidents like this? I think Gaza playbook is a good way to think about it. This is exactly what has happened in the Gaza Strip.

There’s been targeting of medical professionals. There’s been destruction of every functional hospital in the Gaza Strip. And they seem to be applying the same logic here.

Again, trying to use destruction and targeting of the civilian population as a way to put pressure on Hezbollah and achieve their war aims. But these are war crimes under international law to target civilians, especially medical professionals, journalists, aid workers. And they seem to be disregarding that entirely.

I think that’s incredibly telling is the frequent use of double tap strikes, which is when the first impact hits a target, then there’s a pause and they wait for paramedics or bystanders to rush in and help and they follow up with a second missile. This has claimed 53 medical workers, many of whom are paramedics for the Islamic Health Authority, which again is one of these services linked to Hezbollah. But the political affiliation does not matter under international law.

These are still medical professionals, civilians. They are not taking up arms. They are not part of the conflict in any way, shape or form.

And Israel uses the justification without evidence that they are somehow contributing to Hezbollah’s armed conflict and armed operations against Israel. When in fact, the only organisation so far where there is proof that they have used the emblems of medical workers or maimed their protected status is Israel itself. In the first week of the conflict, there was an operation conducted into Nabishit in the Eastern Bekaa, ostensibly to recover the body of a disappeared Israeli airman and buried there 40 years ago.

And locals said that they saw Israelis in Islamic Health Authority ambulances and some of them wearing Lebanese military fatigues, which if that’s confirmed, that is another war crime that falls under perfidy in international law, which is feigning protected status to kill or capture an enemy. That operation went wrong when locals noticed and Hezbollah fighters started engaging. So there was a helicopter rescue staged and Israel bombed the area 40 times in five hours, killing at least 41 people, including three Lebanese armed forces soldiers.

The justification that they are giving for targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is that they are contributing to war aims. But the only people we’ve seen use that is actually Israel itself. Yeah, it’s an incredibly difficult situation, Paul.

And I wonder about you. I mean, just over the weekend, we’ve seen that three journalists were killed in a targeted Israeli attack. And following it, the president of Lebanon said that Israel has once again violated the most basic rules of international law by targeting civilians who were carrying out their professional duty.

The only weapon that these journalists were carrying was their microphone. Now, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 2025 was the deadliest year on record for journalists. And quite shocking, Israel was responsible for about two thirds of journalist deaths.

I’ll just say that again, because, you know, we often might expect this to be in Afghanistan or Iraq or Sudan or Somalia. But that’s not the case. According to the data from the Global Committee to Protect Journalists, two thirds of journalist deaths last year were caused by Israel.

Oh, wonderful. You’re a journalist. You’re living and working in Lebanon right now, and it’s potentially never been more dangerous to be a journalist reporting from places like Lebanon.

How is this changing the way that you and your colleagues are actually covering the war? And what are the risks that we, as people outside Lebanon, who need your work, who need to be able to read that, to stay informed? What are the risks for all of us when journalists are systematically targeted? Well, I think the risks for everybody trying to watch and track the situation are that we just will never find out about some of the atrocities that are committed. Colleagues of mine are taking immense risks in the south to document Israel’s use of white phosphorus, strikes on civilian buildings, strikes on hospitals. That reporting doesn’t happen unless there’s someone there to see it, to write about it, to talk to people.

The costs are huge for journalists, but I think it’s also important to mention that they’re different depending on the kind of journalist you are, right? For Lebanese journalists, risks are huge, and especially for those who take a pro-resistance stance. I mean, the three journalists who were killed this week in Ali Shoaib, Fatima Ftouni, and her brother, Mohamed Ftouni, they were reporting for outlets that tended to side with Hezbollah that were against the Israeli invasion, and they were killed because of their reporting. I went to a march the night after the strike on their car, and there were hundreds of people who turned out to condemn the attack.

Really sort of impactful scene, someone carrying a press helmet in the air. It was a stirring moment because you realise that it’s not just something that other journalists are caring about when we see our colleagues killed. Reporting means something, and it means something in Lebanon, and it means something to people who are watching abroad that tell the stories that are, I think, being ignored more at the international level because of the focus on Iran and the Gulf.

And the same sort of scenes the next morning when I attended the funeral for these three journalists. Colleagues were there, some covering it, some mourning, and it sets a really dangerous precedent that telling the truth can get you killed. Yeah, thanks very much for sharing that, Paul.

There is this growing perception that international law, in particular the laws of armed conflict, are being openly disregarded, whether it’s attacks on civilians, tactics like what you described, the double tap strikes, where there’s an attack on a market or a school or a community area, and then once the health and and emergency responders arrive, they’re then targeted with missile strikes but also the use by Israel of of white phosphorus over residential areas, which is a particularly disgusting form of munition to use in civilian and built-up areas.

And then now even incidents involving peacekeepers. Just a few days ago, we saw two Indonesian peacekeepers were killed. Last week, there was attacks on peacekeepers from Ghana. And, you know, I think this is just a continuation. We know that the international law forbids use of force against another state in exceptional cases like self-defense or with security council approval. The attack and abduction of Maduro in Venezuela was largely seen as fitting neither, generally considered to be a breach of international law. the ongoing attacks against Iran, regardless of the moral justification as far as international law is concerned, they’re considered to be not compliant with international law. And I think this is just you know repeated examples of where double standards are at play. And at at the same time when countries responsible for for killing most journalists, responsible for most incidents of water weaponization, of committing genocide in in GazA. When countries like that are receiving strong political support, strong military support, strong economic support, certainly no sanctions or arms embargoes, What does this say, Paul, about the the current state of international law and and accountability globally?

It feels very grim. THe the vast majority of international law is unenforceable because there’s no world government to you know enact these things. It derives its power from its ability to set norms for the rest of the world that the rest of the world follows because they recognize that it is better to Adhere to these rules in the long run than it is to break them and let any state do what it wants to do. But we’ve seen exactly that start to happen where once the norms are out the window, then countries are able to prosecute wars that seem to be boundless, that seem not to follow any rules. And it’s hard to make the case for a rules-based system or a global law and order when the United States especially and you know its partner Israel are violating those. And speaking about their intent to violate those at every turn, I feel like there used to be in previous wars at least some kind of performance where you had to show that you were waging war within certain limits, that your aims were military. And the messaging on that front seems to have changed entirely. I mean, Israel is comparing its military capabilities in Lebanon to what they’ve done in Gaza, which a lot of legal scholars you know think amounts to a genocide. And to even threaten something like that in another country is, I think, a very scary new precedent. The United States has openly admitted to targeting civil civilian infrastructure in Iran, targeting power plants. Obviously, we saw in the very first days of the war a horrendous strike on a girls’ school killed more than 150 people. And there seems to be no avenue for these injustices to be addressed. And I think that contributes to some of the hopelessness that I’m seeing on the ground here and the inability to tell when anything will be resolved because there’s no forum for it. And the Lebanese government has signaled you know openness to negotiate, openness to talks, and those calls have gone unanswered.

One thing that I’m often quoted as talking about is wherever there’s risks, there’s also opportunities. And of course, Lebanon needs to undergo significant state building. It needs to undergo significant stabilisation that needs to occur regionally as well. So if we look to the future, Paul, what do you see as potential avenues for Lebanon moving forward? What are the next steps that you see as most likely? What are the scenarios that concern you? And you know what opportunities and hope is there for the future when we consider even just the next three to six months in Lebanon?

I think it’s hard to pick out opportunities the way things look right now, but I would say what may be the only lifeline for the Lebanese government is if it steps up and starts caring taking care of all displaced people, um tries to demonstrate that it has what it takes to maintain a monopoly on arms, which it has not had in decades. And that’s the only way as well that it can sort of signal to Israel that it is ready to take over and that it can chip away at some of this justification for a buffer zone and for a long standing occupation of the South. Now, it’s complicated by the fact that the Lebanese Armed Forces are they represent the countries. That means there’s a lot of soldiers in the military who are Shia, who are no doubt loyal to the military, but maybe put in really tough positions if the military is called in to disarm Hezbollah and to turn its weapons against other Shia here. That’s an extremely unenviable position to be in. So I think the risks that come along with what the Lebanese government needs to do are massive, but The consequences of not pursuing any action at all might be far worse and might prolong this conflict for for years to come.

I don’t think we’re going to see a ceasefire the way we did two years ago, which in any case, everybody you speak to here will tell you that it meant very little and that the war never really ended. So i don’t think we should be holding out for a ceasefire. I think, unfortunately, it seems more and more likely that the end state or the next few years, at least, will be determined by the facts on the ground.

And Israel is very effective at turning facts on the ground and the realities of force and the military into um the status quo going forward. So I think we could see serious swaths of Lebanese territory occupied for some time to come. And, ah you know, as I mentioned before, I think that is only going to embolden non-state elements, chiefly Hezbollah, in the future and give them more and more and more of a reason to continue existing and continuing to fight what is, you know, a foreign threat.

Yes, sadly, I think you’re right. I hope you’re wrong, Paul, but I think you might be right. And one thing that many of our listeners listening to this episode might be wondering, something that I’ve been wondering, I first visited Lebanon with the United Nations in 2011, and I received my arrival briefings from UNICEF and then UNHCR and then WFP and then the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs and all said the exact same thing, that Lebanon was on the brink of political violence economic and and societal collapse. It was just about to collapse under the pressure. Then, of course, we saw the spring revolution right across the Middle East. We saw massive influx of over a million Syrian refugees. And pretty much every year I go to Lebanon at least once, sometimes many times with different organizations. And every year I’m told the same thing: Lebanon is about to collapse. economically, politically, and yet it still keeps going. it’s an amazing country with it with a level of resilience that honestly, I don’t understand. i have never been able to work out the model of resilience. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on how a country that has seemingly been on the brink of collapse in many different dimensions for so many years is able to continue despite all its challenges. What’s your insight there, Paul?

Yeah I think the short answer is practice. I think, unfortunately, as you mentioned, Lebanon has been in this situation for a very long time or situations like it. And people have learned to build their own support networks when things are not being provided for them. they you know There’s a huge reliance on family connections, on social networks here that we might not be as used to in Western countries. And I don’t think that the concerns are overblown. Collapse is a very real issue, but collapse doesn’t mean the same thing as an end. People will always be here. They will always continue living. They will always look ah to build a better future for themselves, for their kids.

It’s just that the conditions under which that’s going to happen seem to be deteriorating and have been on a long-term path of deterioration as well. I think with Lebanon, it’s interesting too, because there are more Lebanese who live outside the country than in it. And we see massive emigration among the 18 to 24 age group, especially, which is a real threat to future rebuilding and to future flourishing of Lebanon if young people don’t see that future for themselves here. And if both Lebanon and you know the international community at large are giving them very little reason to believe in that.

Thanks for sharing that, Paul. And maybe just in the last 60 seconds, when you look around the world, Paul, what are the international risks that concern you the most?

Zooming out a little bit on the conflict as a whole, i think the biggest risk is that there’s very little evidence to view the United States and certainly Israel as a partner for peace, as governments that are going to be negotiating in good faith. And I think that is incredibly dangerous, not only for the way that this conflict might end, because it severely limits the options available for de-escalation and for an off-ramp, but for any other global conflict or any other issue that requires multilateral cooperation. if the Americans can’t be trusted when they walk into a negotiating room to to make a deal, then there’s very little incentive for anyone else to negotiate in good faith or to offer terms at all. And I think this is the issue in Iran. This is the issue in Lebanon. This will be the issue for a very long time in Palestine as well, in Sudan, you know anywhere where there’s ongoing conflict. You need to have parties that show that they can meet somewhere in the middle, wherever that is. And when the United States has now entered into negotiations, both in June of last year and in January of this year, with Iran and then bombs that country that sort of destroys any trust that I think there was very little in the first place, but it destroys future possibilities for trust and for good faith negotiation and for diplomatic outcomes instead of just military realities.

Yeah, I agree. Thanks very much for explaining that, Paul. And thank you very much for coming on the International Risk Podcast today.

Thanks for having me. It was great to talk to you.

Stay safe, Paul. That was a great conversation with Paul Hefel-James. He’s a freelance journalist based in Beirut in Lebanon, and he covers migration and refugee affairs. And I really enjoyed hearing his insights on what it’s actually like in Lebanon today.

This podcast was produced and coordinated by Anna Kummelstedt. I’m Dominic Bowen, your host. Thanks very much for listening. We will speak again in the next couple of days.