Israel just killed four Oxfam water engineers in Gaza

Israel just killed four Oxfam water engineers in Gaza.

Oxfam had coordinated with Israel, letting them know where they were going and what they were doing. Despite this, their clearly-marked vehicle was bombed.

Attacks on civilian infrastructure and those who maintain it are…

— Halli (@iamharaldur) October 20, 2024

Israel has announced plans to strike Hizbullah’s “economic power” tonight, specifically Qard al-Hasan and potentially other civilian institutions, alleging that they are “used to finance Hezbollah’s terror activities.”

But these strikes don’t actually target Hezbollah’s finances or Iran’s funding, but the economic lifeline of over 300,000 Lebanese who not only deposit their savings with the non-profit NGO but also rely on it for interest-free loans.

While Iran helped establish the organization in the 1980s, it is now entirely self-funded, overwhelmingly by Lebanon’s Shia community. Since Lebanon’s 2019 economic collapse and the meltdown of its banking system, Qard al-Hasan has become vital for everything from paying school fees to funding small businesses and installing solar panels. The NGO serves all communities: at the St. Therese branch near Hadath, 30-40% of clients are Christian, and in Sidon, the majority are non-Shia.

Although Qard al-Hassan has announced that it has safeguarded people’s deposits and savings since the war began, Israel’s actions amount to a strategy aimed at further impoverishing Lebanon’s already vulnerable and largely displaced Shia community, as approximately 85% of depositors and borrowers are Shia. This collective punishment represents socioeconomic erasure layered onto physical erasure, as Israel aims to kill, uproot, and immiserate Hezbollah’s support base.

The Dahiya doctrine, or Dahya doctrine,^[1] is an Israeli military strategy involving the large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure, or domicide, to pressure hostile governments.^[2] The doctrine was outlined by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot. Israel colonel Gabi Siboni wrote that Israel “should target economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organization”.^[3] The logic is to harm the civilian population so much that they will then turn against the militants, forcing the enemy to sue for peace.^[3][4]

The doctrine is named after the Dahieh neighborhood (also transliterated as Dahiyeh and Dahiya) of Beirut, where Hezbollah had its headquarters during the 2006 Lebanon War, and which was heavily damaged by the IDF.^[2]