Innocents Suffer in the Modern War

The world is witnessing one of the largest human evacuations, combined with untold civilian suffering, in Lebanon after Israel began its "counteroffensive" strikes on the country. The strikes were aimed at the hard-line Islamist group, Hezbollah, after the group took two Israeli soldiers hostage and killed two others in a cross-border raid against Israel.

By doing so, Hezbollah seems to be signaling the official start of an indefinite war with its longtime adversary, Israel, and inviting another full round of carnage in the Middle East, which has seemed to have calmed down for some time, before.

Hundreds of thousands fled for their lives to their respective countries, and many are still struggling for a safe escape from the Lebanese sites, which at this moment shuddering under the overwhelming bombardments and rocket strikes from the Israeli fighters and tankers, which they claim is to counter and destabilize the "terrorist" group Hezbollah.

Besides the relentless exodus these civilians have experienced, another gruesome aspect hitting the global headlines these days is the massive number of civilian casualties on both sides. For the time being, the civilian deaths are more profound on the Lebanese side, where Israeli aggression towards this Islamic hardliners seems to have blindfolded them to see the loss of innocent lives, while dispersing the heavy artillery targeting the Hezbollah militancy.

Terrorism associated with extremism of any form can never be supported. But this doesn't mean that any regime fighting terrorism should disregard civilian lives simply because they happen to live in the same place as terrorists. More unfortunately, the forces involved in modern warfare, be they from the side tagged with "terrorists" or from the other side who claim to stand as "anti-terrorists," seems to have failed to accord ordinary innocent lives with an utmost degree of respect.