On March 7, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson issued a warning to residents of the Dahiya district in Beirut: “Save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately.” The following day, in a briefing to journalists in Israel, the IDF said that in the week since Hezbollah decided to join the war alongside Iran, Israeli strikes in Lebanon had destroyed hundreds of buildings, including 50 high-rise towers.The military said attacks on Beirut’s Dahiya district would continue, arguing that “the area still serves as a major hub for Hezbollah activity,” after dozens of villages in southern Lebanon have already been wiped out since October 7, 2023.During the same briefing, the IDF acknowledged that despite the widespread destruction, it has struggled to deal with the threat posed by Hezbollah drones. It is reasonable to assume that Israeli commanders understand that even if all Hezbollah fighters were pushed far from the border and beyond the Litani River, or if Israel demolished every home and stationed soldiers at checkpoints across Lebanon, the drones and missiles – which are becoming more advanced day by day – would continue to target Israel as long as no diplomatic solution is reached.But Israel’s true objective is not to hunt down individual missile and drone launchers, and the Netanyahu government appears unwilling to pursue a diplomatic solution that would allow Lebanon and the Lebanese people to exercise their rights under international law. Instead, the current Israeli government, like its predecessors, seems intent on continuing to implement the “Dahiya Doctrine,” adopted by the IDF after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and formulated by Gadi Eisenkot, who later became IDF chief of staff and is now part of the opposition against Netanyahu.The doctrine is named after the Dahiya district of Beirut, which in July 2006 was almost completely flattened in a series of airstrikes and naval bombardments by the Israeli military. Eisenkot summarised the doctrine in a 2008 interview: ” What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on… We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases… This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.”According to the IDF’s “Dahiya Doctrine,” the tactic of hunting down and destroying individual launchers has proven ineffective. Instead, disproportionate aerial and artillery fire is to be used against the communities from which missile and drone launchers operate, against Hezbollah’s political, social, or religious centers, and against the civilian infrastructure of the political entity from which Hezbollah operates. As Major General (res.) Giora Eiland explained in a 2008 article: “Such a war will lead to the elimination of the Lebanese military, the destruction of the national infrastructure, and intense suffering among the population… Serious damage to the Republic of Lebanon, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people are consequences that can influence Hezbollah’s behavior more than anything else.”A doctrine that deliberately employs disproportionate force against civilian targets and infrastructure, while causing widespread suffering among civilians, constitutes a clear doctrine of war crimes and represents a grave and unequivocal violation of international humanitarian law. In particular, it breaches the fundamental principle of distinction, which requires differentiating between civilians and civilian objects, on one hand, and combatants and military objectives, on the other. It also violates the prohibitions on unnecessary suffering, on disproportionate attacks, and on collective punishment.Not only has international law effectively evaporated, but even practical considerations appear to carry little weight. The international community is allowing Israel to destroy Lebanon, even though it is already clear that it will be difficult – if not impossible – to secure sufficient international funding after the war to rebuild the massive destruction Israel is causing there. This is before reconstruction has even begun for the vast destruction Israel inflicted during the war in the Gaza Strip. Enormous international funding will also be required to rebuild Syria, and reconstruction across the Middle East will compete with the vast sums needed to rebuild Ukraine and other places around the world.In effect, the international community is knowingly allowing Israel to carry out massive destruction across multiple countries in the Middle East – including, at present, in Iran – even though it is clear that such devastation will only fuel further instability, displacement, poverty, hunger, disease, radicalisation, and additional war.One can understand the helplessness of Lebanon’s fragile government, which lacks the economic and military resources needed to restrain Israel. On March 9, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in an interview that “Lebanon did everything possible to avoid the current war,” adding that the only guarantees received so far concern sparing Beirut Airport and the road leading to it from bombardment.But the international community as a whole has effectively thrown up its hands, seemingly internalising the notion that only President Trump – who is bombing Iran alongside Israel – can stop Israel’s actions in Lebanon and elsewhere. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, appears to have accepted the situation: rather than demanding that Israel halt its massive bombardment, he limited himself, in a conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu, to urging Israel to refrain from a ground offensive.Not only the Lebanese people, but the entire world will bear the heavy cost of this resignation for many years to come.Eitay Mack is an Israeli human rights lawyer who has filed petitions to the Supreme Court that helped reveal details of Israel’s involvement in Lebanon.