Arms Embargo Now; Permanent Cease-Fire Now—Lebanon

Saturday, September 28, 2024, was a sad day in Lebanon, as the assassination of Al-Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was confirmed. He was viewed by foe as a terrorist and as formidable and charismatic leader of resistance and freedom by followers and admirers. His death and the ensuing backlash to it will only embolden a stronger resistance national movement and as with his predecessor Abbas Mousawi, who was also killed by Israel in 1992, two days before Nasrallah took leadership of Hizballah, another leader will emerge.

The arduous path to peace is for our complacency as Americans to end. We must stop the arms transfer and sales to Israel. An immediate permanent ceasefire in Lebanon, Palestine and Israel must ensue. And now that the broader region has been instigated into a war, this is even more imperative.

While history of the humanitarian political crisis long in the making dates prior to 1948, I will only go back to forty-two years ago, when Israel invaded Lebanon for the second time (the first time was 1978). The summer of 1982, I just graduated from college with a degree in International Affairs, with a minor in the Middle East and Economics.  I was excited to attend graduate school at McGill University pursuing a Masters in Developmental Economics and Islamic Studies.

That June, Israel started with airstrikes in South Lebanon, all the way to Beirut and beyond. The 1982 invasion was one of the most horrific periods of the late twentieth century in the Middle East.  In their excursion into Sidon, my hometown, where I was raised, neighborhoods were demolished, buildings were bombed and entire families with small children who sought underground protection in shelters were killed. It took an atrocious crime in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps to have at least a report on the human victims of the war.  In the span of three months and half, 19,000 or so killed, more than 30,000 injured and millions displaced. More than $2 billion in damage to Lebanon was reeked and an eighteen-year occupation followed. An occupation, I personally witnessed in 1983, 1992, 1995, 1997, and 1999.

My involvement with Save Lebanon, Inc. at the time, with so many caring individuals brought 52 maimed and burnt children to the US for medical treatment not available there due to the destruction of hospitals, thanks to the generosity of the communities, doctors and medical administrators. And hundreds of stranded Lebanese and Palestinian students were aided with stipends to tie them over as everything in Lebanon came to a halt.

In 2006, the Israeli-Lebanon War killed more than 1,200 Lebanese and displaced one million of them. My husband, two young children—9 and 12—and I were visiting that summer and were caught there, escaping through the only open exit in North Lebanon to Syria, to Jordan and back home to New Jersey. The Beirut International airport was attacked, and the entire infrastructure was destroyed once again.

Today, history continues to repeat itself over and over, in Lebanon, with two weeks of bombing raids, pager, and walkie talkie terror attacks, more than 2,000 are dead with land incursion ahead.  One million Lebanese people have fled their homes seeking safety and security, including my relatives in South Lebanon. Not to mention, the year-long genocide in Gaza, Palestine. All its residents have sought refuge manifolds with the threat of famine, typhoid, polio, and cholera looming, if they were not massacred. More than 42,000 dead—one third of them children; hundreds of thousands injured, maimed, and burnt. Now, attacks on Yemen and Syria.

I watch the news aghast, as my birthplace is being bombed to hell and my people are being annihilated with US weapons, supported by my tax dollars.  My hometown Sidon is being attacked. Beirut is burning. Gaza is demolished.

We are not powerless; we as Americans can help stop this. Demanding an immediate ceasefire and stop to the bombing and killing of innocent civilians in both Lebanon and Palestine is the minimum we can ask of our country.  The sales and transfer of weapons to Israel must stop.

Failure to take immediate action has led to a wider regional, perhaps, now a global war, causing more deaths and destruction, in a constrained fragility. Israel’s continued aggression and terror campaign will destroy far more lives and risk even higher instability in the region.  For the sake of peace and the children, implore a permanent ceasefire now with an arms embargo.

Khatmeh Osseiran-Hanna, based in Indiana, PA, is retired vice president for university advancement, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (`17-`23) and former, executive Director, Save Lebanon, Inc. (`88-`95); currently Principal Partner at KOH Consulting, providing strategic advancement advice and services to non-profits and higher education institutions.

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