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Louise Thomas
Editor
The constant question this year has been: are we on the brink of a regional all-out war?
On Tuesday, a barrage of Iranian missiles showered fiery comets over Israeli towns, sending citizens into air raid shelters. In the ravaged southern borderlands of Lebanon, families cowered under plumes of glowing red from Israeli warplanes and a ground invasion.
In Khan Younis in Gaza, now in the shadow of the Israel-Iran conflict, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli strikes killed 51 people, bringing the death toll to an almost unfathomable 41,600. Israel and the Houthi fighters in Yemen have also traded fire – which a few years ago would have made headlines but, against the backdrop of the towering inferno of the Middle East, was largely met with a shrug.
The world is holding its breath for what comes next. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vowing to retaliate against Iran, said: “They made a big mistake tonight, and they will pay for it.” Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian warned that Israel would face a harsh reaction if it did not stop what he called “its crimes,” while an Iranian commander threatened wider strikes on infrastructure if Israel retaliates.
In the wake of this, Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer once again raised the alarm about the region being “on the brink”. Donald Trump went one step further, accusing US vice-president Kamala Harris and president Joe Biden of “leading us to the brink of World War III”.
But when does it stop being a brink – and start becoming the precipice we have all collectively jumped off?
If we look across the smouldering horizons of the Middle East, we are already there. I fear the fallout from this freefall has no end – there is no bottom to this. The darkest future is looming on our horizons, with death tolls and destruction on a level none of us can even imagine.
World leaders, UN officials and experts all say that only the most determined diplomatic efforts, only a multilateral, multi-level ceasefire, can be the parachute to slow this nightmare down. The world must act now, as it is already bordering on too late.
It has been a year since Hamas militants launched their bloody assault on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli estimates.
Of the hostages, around 100 are thought to still be inside Gaza, although there are concerns that only three-quarters of them are alive. Since then, Israel’s ferocious bombardment of Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, the vast majority women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. An additional 10,000 are thought to be lost under the rubble.
That war has triggered every explosive faultline across the Middle East, with a multiple-front battleground emerging, pitting Israel – and its seemingly unwilling allies, including the US – against Iran and its proxies and allies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and, of course, Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The more actors get involved, the more complex this situation becomes. The fallout from a cross-region war cannot be imagined.
Today in Lebanon – where a war between Israel and Hezbollah rages on – the UN says as many as a million have been displaced, which would be a fifth of the entire population.
The UK is busy organising chartered evacuation flights for British citizens still left in the country. Captains of luxury party yachts along Lebanon’s glittering Mediterranean coastline have been shuttling people to Cyprus –for a hefty $1,500 price tag. There are even families fleeing by foot via the land border into war-torn Syria.
It follows nearly two million displaced in Gaza, 90 per cent of the pre-war population. Most of them forced to move at least three times.
In Israel, 60,000 people have been displaced from the north, living in hotels and rented apartments. A driving force behind Israel’s invasion of Lebanon has been a desire to push Hezbollah back far enough to allow citizens to go home.
But as we hurtle towards mutual annihilation, there are already no homes for people to return to – few families left to reunite.
I’ve spoken to civilians in Gaza, scrambling for food in bullet-ridden tents, begging for any second of respite. I’ve spoken to former Israeli hostages, shuttling across the world in search of a truce exchange deal to bring their loved ones home – not in body bags. I’ve spoken to displaced families in Lebanon, camping in the streets of burning towns, who right now need just a basic roof over their heads.
Their voices must be heard by the leaders of Israel and Iran.
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