An Empire Problem: On the Ground in Southern Lebanon (with Courtney Bonneau)

What began, officially, as a mission to attack Hezbollah leadership and military strongholds is now indisputably much larger and, by all indications, more imperial. Israel is applying what it terms a “Gaza model” to the region south of Lebanon’s Litani River–meaning the leveling of buildings and destruction of civilian infrastructure. Its finance minister explicitly revealed plans to annex the territory, decreeing that “The Litani must become [Israel’s] new border with the state of Lebanon.” The codename of the operation–Eternal Darkness–does not suggest that this is going to end any time soon.

On today’s PREVAIL podcast, Greg Olear speaks with the Middle East-based photojournalist Courtney Bonneau, who has been reporting live from the war zone of southern Lebanon, about the devastation she’s seeing on the ground.