Israel’s assault on Lebanon proves the falsehood of ‘international law’

Gaza isn’t just a genocide. It’s a template.

Ahmad Malas is the CEO of Muslim Aid Australia and has been working within community for the past 20 years, both as an advocate and a leader within the Lebanese diaspora in Australia. He’s made notable contributions to the Lebanese Muslim community during his time working within community, the government sector and across the NFP sector. Opinions expressed are those of the author alone.

Like many in the Lebanese diaspora, my days now begin and end the same: checking messages from relatives and waiting for confirmation that everyone is still safe.

For many of us, these scenes are painfully familiar. Motorways gridlocked with cars as families attempt to escape, neighbourhoods emptying overnight, people desperately calling loved ones. I recognise these images not only as a humanitarian advocate, but as someone who grew up in Lebanon and whose earliest memories are shaped by an uneasy cycle of conflict and ceasefires.

More than 1.2 million people and counting have already been displaced in Lebanon as the map of Israeli airstrikes expands, forcing civilians to flee their homes and pushing an already fragile state toward collapse. Entire neighbourhoods in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahye have been flattened, while evacuation orders have triggered mass displacement across southern Lebanon. Many are now living in a constant state of uncertainty, unsure when or if they will be able to return. Evacuation orders issued in areas south of the Litani River and in Beirut’s southern suburbs have also raised serious concerns about forcible transfer of population.

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For humanitarian organisations working in the region, these developments are not abstract legal debates. They translate immediately into operational realities: blocked access routes, overwhelmed shelters, hospitals running on limited fuel, and the constant calculation of how to reach families who have fled with nothing.

Human rights organisations are already documenting potential violations of international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch reported that Israeli forces used white phosphorus shells from the air over civilian homes in the town of Yahmar in southern Lebanon on March 3, 2026.

The same tactics that shattered Gaza, including siege conditions, mass displacement and widespread attacks on civilian infrastructure, now risk being replicated across the region. These are not isolated incidents but part of a broader strategy that threatens to normalise the use of bombardment, displacement, and occupation against an independent state. This is not only a humanitarian crisis, but a legal and political one. It is a test of whether international law functions as a constraint on power, or whether it protects it.

The goal is not simply military containment. It is the consolidation of power through displacement, territorial domination, and the erosion of the sovereignty of a neighbouring state.

Israel’s own leaders have made this clear. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly warned that Lebanese suburbs could be turned into “another Gaza”, invoking the devastation of Khan Younis as a model.

The message could not be clearer: Gaza is a template. Lebanon is the next phase in Israel’s continuing campaign of expansion and regional destabilisation. If this trajectory continues unchecked, the consequences will not be confined to Lebanon. It signals the emergence of a regional doctrine in which overwhelming force, civilian displacement, and infrastructural collapse are treated as legitimate instruments of war.

Yet Western governments, including Australia’s, have responded with dangerous complacency.

Canberra conveniently invokes the language of a “rules-based international order” while simultaneously aligning itself with actions that undermine the very legal architecture it claims to protect. Israel is currently facing proceedings at the International Court of Justice over allegations of genocide in Gaza.

Rather than contributing weapons, military assets or personnel, the Australian government should be using every diplomatic and political lever available to halt further escalation, protect civilian life and defend the international legal order it claims to uphold. Instead, Australia has deployed military assets to the region and confirmed that Australian personnel were embedded on a United States submarine involved in an offensive operation that sank an Iranian warship.

Australia is quick to sanction countries such as Iran, Venezuela and Cuba in the name of international law. However, when similar legal principles are breached by so-called allies such as the United States or Israel, the response becomes far more ambiguous. Australia and other Western governments are not merely bystanders to this erosion of international law. Through diplomatic cover and military alignment, they are helping to entrench it.

If Gaza has shown us anything, it is that once the erosion of international law begins, it does not stay contained. When violations are tolerated in one place, they quickly become precedents elsewhere.

What is unfolding in Lebanon risks widespread loss of life, the collapse of already fragile infrastructure and livelihoods, and the deepening trauma of a population that has already endured decades of war. Children will bear the heaviest burden. Exposure to violence, displacement and instability creates lasting psychological scars that will shape an entire generation.

The resilience of Lebanese communities remains evident. Schools, mosques, churches and community halls have opened their doors to shelter displaced families. Neighbours are sharing meals and volunteers are organising transport to medical care.

But solidarity alone cannot withstand the catastrophic scale of displacement and the dangerous unpredictability of what is still to come.

And the world will have shown, once again, that the rules designed to protect civilians in war no longer apply.

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