Senators press US military on Israel’s displacement campaign in Lebanon | Israel attacks Lebanon News | Al Jazeera

The letter – sent on Monday and made public on Thursday – largely focused on Israel’s conduct in Lebanon, where the Israeli military is systematically turning border towns that it has depopulated into rubble.

“The declaration of military evacuation zones has been used to permanently displace people and destroy homes and towns – acts that are in violation of international law,” the legislators wrote.

“Furthermore, no declaration of evacuation zones or ‘kill zones’ absolves Israeli and US forces from the absolute legal responsibility to determine that each individual person or civilian facility targeted by drones, jets, and gunfire is, in fact, a military target.”

Signatories to the letter include prominent progressives such as Peter Welch, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen.

Chris Coons, a centrist and staunch Israel supporter, also signed.

Throughout its genocidal war on Gaza, Israel used displacement orders to depopulate large areas of the territory, and then blew up nearly every structure in the evacuated area.

Israeli officials have publicly admitted that they aim to re-create the same model in South Lebanon, creating a desolate, uninhabitable no-man’s land that would serve as a buffer zone that would not require permanent military occupation.