TEHRAN- Western leaders have noticeably chosen to remain silent or turn a blind eye to the Israeli carnage in Lebanon that has shocked the world.

Israel initiated widespread strikes in Lebanon on Monday under the pretext of hitting Hezbollah targets. 

The Israeli attacks have mostly concentrated in the south of Lebanon, but some reached up into the east and northeast of the Mediterranean country. 

Lebanon’s health minister said on Tuesday afternoon that the death toll from the Israeli strikes since Monday reached 558, including 50 children and 94 women, with 1,835 wounded.

According to Firas Abiad, the earlier strikes hit hospitals, medical centers and ambulances. 

The Lebanese government has ordered schools and universities to close across most of the country and begun preparing shelters for the displaced.

As Lebanon is reeling from the Israeli massacre, the regime’s army has vowed to “accelerate offensive actions”. 

“We will continue to operate at full strength. The current situation requires continued intensive operations across all fronts,” Israeli army Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi told the Jerusalem Post. 

Nonetheless, the United States which stands accused of feeding Israel’s war machine is playing the blame game. 

“My team has been in constant contact with their counterparts, and we're working to de-escalate in a way that allows people to return to their home safely,” President Joe Biden said Monday.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday that  Biden is determined to bring about a Gaza ceasefire and captive deal with Hamas while also seeking to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Lebanon. 

Unsurprisingly, the US, which provides Israel with unwavering political and military support, has not condemned the regime’s massacre of Lebanese people. 

Since Israel launched war on Gaza on October 7, concerns have grown over the spillover of the conflict into the region, including in Lebanon. 

The US and its Western and regional allies have made critical remarks about the loss of civilian life in Gaza but they have failed to take any practical action to prevent Israel’s war of genocide in the enclave which has resulted in the deaths of approximately 41,500 Palestinians over the course of nearly a year.

Neither the massacre of Gazans nor the killing of more than 500 Lebanese people in just a single day has elicited strong denunciation from Western states. 

It seems as if the lives of Palestinians and Lebanese do matter to them. 

Israel has indicated that its strikes on Lebanon aim to secure the return of displaced people to northern Israel.

Tens of thousands of people have become displaced in northern Israel and southern Lebanon amid the exchanges of fire between the Tel Aviv regime and Hezbollah since October 8. That is a day after Israel launched the war on Gaza.

The Lebanese resistance movement has said it would halt the attacks if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has derailed talks aimed at ending the Gaza war by setting new conditions. 

Hence, the Netanyahu regime can lay the foundations for the return of evacuated people to northern Israel by stopping the Gaza genocide.

Netanyahu is under the illusion that military pressure may bring Hezbollah to its knees. 

Such delusions come as Israel has failed to deliver on its promise to achieve total victory over Hamas and eliminate the resistance group after more than 11 months of war in Gaza. 

But Israel’s brutal attacks on Lebanon have at least enabled the regime to divert global attention from the ongoing genocide in Gaza. For now, this is a gamble for Israel. 

As an initial response to the latest Israeli crimes in Lebanon, Hezbollah has fired dozens of rockets toward Israel, including at military bases. It also once again targeted the facilities of the Rafael defense firm, headquartered in Haifa on Tuesday. Hezbollah also used a new rocket, Fadi 3, in an attack on an Israeli army base.

If Israel further escalates the situation by sending troops into Lebanon, it would have to encounter severe consequences. 

Numerous Israeli reservists, who constitute the majority of the military, have expressed deep concerns regarding their fatigue.

But Hezbollah possesses a dedicated force of 100,000 fighters committed to the defense of Lebanon. The resistance movement also approximately has 150,000 rockets and missiles, including thousands of precision munitions which can reduce Israeli cities to rubble.