Newsletter 149 – June 20, 2026

Newsletter 149

June 20, 2026

S.O.S. LEBANON (3)
S.O.S. ISRAEL (3)
S.O.S. PALESTINE (3)

Lebanon: 12 children killed, maimed daily, despite Hezbollah-Israel truce
UN News, June 17, 2026

Israeli minister says ‘all of Lebanon must burn’ after 4 soldiers die
Mona Khalil, ‘guardian of the turtles’ of Mansouri, succumbs to injuries after Isr strike on her home
L’Orient Today, June 19, 2026

S.O.S. LEBANON :

Mona Khalil, 76, passed yesterday, in a Beirut hospital, from the injuries sustained in a strike on her home, the Orange House, in Mansouri, South of Tyre. Her whole dedication in life was to protect  the sea turtles on the coast of Lebanon. She had vowed herself to only do things in this life that made sense and gave her joy.

« She did not only protect turtles, she inspired people. »

Israel army issues evacuation order for 29 south Lebanon villages
AFP, Al Arabiya, June 14, 2026

Israel should stop all strikes in Lebanon, IDF threatens chance of ceasefire, Trump says
Maya Zanger-Nadis, The Jerusalem Post, June 14, 2026

*** U.S.-Iran Deal Reached, Includes ‘Immediate Termination’ of Fighting in Lebanon
Ben Samuels, Haaretz, June 15, 2026
*** US-Iran peace deal announced with ‘permanent’ end to military action
Al Arabiya, June 15, 2026
Mapped out: Israeli army formalizes expansion of its ‘operations zone’ in south Lebanon
L’Orient Today, June 18, 2026
Israel has killed or maimed an average of 12 children a day in Lebanon since March 2, UNICEF says
L’Orient Today, June 18, 2026
‘Can’t kill your way out of every problem’: JD Vance spars with Ben-Gvir, Smotrich over Iran deal
Goldie Katz, The Jerusalem Post, June 18, 2026
Lebanon says 18 killed in strikes, Israel reports deaths of four soldiers
Al Arabiya, June 19, 2026
Fighting Persists in Lebanon, Complicating Iran Peace Talks
John Yoon, Abdi Latif Dahir, Julian Barnes, The New York Times, June 20, 2026
The IDF’s Russian Roulette in Lebanon Continues – and No One Can Explain Why
Amos Harel, Haaretz, June 20, 2026

To the question asked by an Israeli journalist if it seemed logical that « our soldiers are wounded and killed in the north every week inside what was declared a ceasefire » the Golani commander who led the raid on the Beaufort castle, and seized it without a fight, Lt. Col. Vackert, gave an honest, straightforward answer :

“Listen, this ceasefire never met us along the way. From our perspective, no one told us: you are in a ceasefire with Hezbollah, you are not allowed to fire or advance. We operate quite freely in our sector. We were in the Litani, they said ceasefire, we went out to Beaufort. So that is a discussion in the media. For the maneuvering forces, there is no ceasefire.”
To make his point clearer yet : « You said ‘ceasefire’, from my perspective you said nothing. I hear that discourse and understand that it is not relevant to me. We, in our operations and missions, continue as usual and see no difference. »

To the question whether he saw a « sustainable long-term solution », his assessment is :

« …in the end this is a Shiite culture of not surrendering no matter what, no matter how much they lose or what happens to their residents… » https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/hjvzjlzfze

When asked how long does he think they can continue, his answer is the unsurprising old one :

« Soldiers are discharged and new soldiers arrive, so the ranks are refreshed. »
Back to Yael Lee’s bitter conclusion in early June, when asked Why Did You Let Your Son Be a Combat Soldier? ‘I Was Naive. I Truly Believed Israel Sought Peace’ :

« These kids are simply cannon fodder. »

We hear 36 lives of Israeli soldiers have been lost in Lebanon, as of June 20.

The toll for the Lebanese : over 4,000 killed, 12,000 wounded.

The US Vice-President’s warning, as of June 18 :

« You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have. »

Vance slams Israeli ‘freakout’ over Iran deal: ‘You can’t just kill your way out of solving’ every security problem

Linda Dayan, Times of Israel, June 18, 2026

S.O.S. ISRAEL / S.O.S. PALESTINE :

Facts seldom considered : There are seven million Jews in Israel. One million are deeply religious, observant, refuse to carry guns and don a State uniform. Another million identify to them. Two million Israelis are Arabs, either Muslims or secular, conscription is not an obligation for them – only a few hundred serve in the army. Another three million Arabs live in the occupied West Bank. Two million more have been penned into the Western ruins of Gaza, whereas the army controls over sixty percent of the rest.

The ceasefire between Gaza and Israel was signed on October 9, 2025, endorsed on October 10. In those eight months, four Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza, and over a thousand Palestinians, more than a quarter of them children.

Death toll from Israeli fire in Gaza since ceasefire passes 1,000, says health ministry
Reuters, June 18, 2026

Since the October 2025 ceasefire, 265 Palestinian children have been killed across Gaza – one child, on average, every single day
UN News, June 21, 2026

 

In those eight months, what has changed for the inhabitants of Gaza, apart from the erratic and regular killing of people ? To this day, they are not allowed materials to repair their demolished houses, schools, public places. The caterpillars used to destroy homes have not been used to remove the rubble. Mentioned in the previous Newsletter, the heat there is stifling, from May till September. What access do they have to running, drinkable water ?

From accountancy to accountability. Another thousand people have been killed in the West Bank since October 2023. [We are talking about people, are we not]. Summary executions.

Not that nobody knows, but the mass media keep sliding from one eruption, one war zone to the next, and we skip along, sticking to perfunctory labels, into oblivion.

S.O.S. ISRAEL / S.O.S. PALESTINE, all in one. Only fourteen million people on this tiny slot of « holy » land, with six more million on that other tiny slot of land called Lebanon.

Do we have to remind that, out of these twenty million human beings, three have been forcibly displaced, to this day, and are now surviving under tents ?

[This is not the land I used to know, until a few years ago. If May 2026 was the worst month in all these years, June is even worse – as the American Vice-President has come to point to the killing madness spreading from South to North. « You can’t just kill your way out of solving » every security problem.]

This orgy of killing is not being performed by deranged criminals, but by law-abiding citizens, upon orders, and laisser faire.
Every passing week somehow worse than what came before ?
A former Prime Minister (from 2006 to 2009) has spoken out, about the matrix of such growing horror.

You may suspect politicians. Would you suspect witnesses from long-established humanitarian organizations ?

Israel Is Conducting a Systematic Campaign of Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity in the West Bank
Ehud Olmert, Haaretz, June 18, 2026

Stop Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank
Amnesty International, June 2026

Stop beating about the bush. Take it back to the occupation process. Occupation is occupation is occupation. Occupation : Kibush in Hebrew.

« You may not like the word, but what is happening is an occupation, kibush ze kibush. — to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians, » stated PM Ariel Sharon before the Knesset on May 26, 2003. « It cannot continue endlessly. Do you want to stay forever in Jenin, in Nablus, in Ramallah, in Bethlehem? I don’t think that’s right.”

Sharon: ‘Occupation’ terrible for Israel, Palestinians CNN, May 27, 2003

That was, presumably, twenty-three years ago. That was yesterday. Things have only been going from Charybdis to Scylla since. From the frying pan to the fire.

Take a recent publication, a Loving Dictionary of Israel, by Elie Barnavi – born in Bucarest, author of the remarkable Historical Atlas of the Jewish People, once an Israeli ambassador, commissionned by Ariel Sharon. A « must read », by all means.

All the more as a Loving Dictionary of Palestine has also been published recently, by Elias Sanbar – a Palestinian historian and diplomat of the same generation.

What is striking about Barnavi’s amazing book is that he has decided to make it a testimony about a human country that is no more. « So, what will you find there ? Characters [the dead only – for reasons that need no comment, I spared the living], places, doctrines, facts… which, together draw a portrait of the Jewish state.» How can you draw such a compelling portrait without today’s people ?

Will it be disregarded for being focused on ‘the past’  ? Beware that « the past is never dead, it is not even past »

Elias Sanbar (born in Haifa, in what they call Mandatory Palestine) was photographed with Stephane Hessel (Time for Outrage ! 2010) on the picture below. What Sanbar has to say about the possibility

of peace, remote as it feels : « to make peace is something extremely violent. »

« The transitions can be risky if they don’t open the door to changes, if they don’t transform mindsets,

do not provide us with small daily proof that the

choice made was the good one. »

Let’s face it : it’s either self-destructive violence, or self-constructive violence from now on.
We still have to deal

with the human matrix

of chaos, separatism, segregation and death.

Surviving on borrowed time, making peace

with ourselves is around the bend for all of us…/….