Why is Canada’s response to Israel’s attack on Lebanon so different this time?
The Israeli army appears to have halted its entry into Lebanon so that it can reach its objective of the Litani River. But the Israeli government has not given up its stated intention to reoccupy southern Lebanon, which it held from 1982 to 2000.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about Canada’s response last week, he faced the same questions that were asked of his predecessor Stephen Harper 20 years ago.
Harper was criticized for his defense of Israeli actions in 2006 including the bombing of a UN base that killed Maj. Canada’s Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, the bombing of the Beirut International Airport and the then-IDF commander’s threats to destroy civilian infrastructure to “turn the clock back 20 years for the Lebanese people.”
“Israel’s response under the circumstances has been measured,” Harper said. He refused to condemn the Israeli bombings that killed hundreds of people, among them seven members of the Canadian al-Akhras family – including four children – who were on holiday in Lebanon when the fighting broke out.
This time Canada’s reaction was very different.
“It’s an illegal attack,” Carney said. “It is a violation of their territorial sovereignty … we condemn it.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned Israel’s attack on Lebanon on Tuesday, amid a nearly month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah. ‘The attack on Lebanon is a violation of their territorial sovereignty,’ said Carney.
The 2026 war largely echoes the 2006 war in terms of Israel’s stated reasons (Hezbollah rocket fire and its presence near the border) and its strategy (attack to push Hezbollah back and create some sort of buffer zone).
But the region and the politics surrounding the war have all changed.
In Israel, those who were once on the fringes of Israeli politics under police surveillance are now cabinet ministers in a government that is increasingly isolated from the world.
In Lebanon, there are many questions about Hezbollah, and anger at its willingness to drag the country into war – but there are also early signs that some may not want to obey orders to leave Israel, convinced they may never be allowed to return, Lebanese analyst Bassel Doueik told CBC News.
“Where will all these people go? You have an ineffective government, a fragile situation,” he said.
‘Over the Line’
In Canada, changing public attitudes have robbed Israel of what was once one of its most reliable international supporters.
“Increasingly the Canadian government is realizing that Israel’s actions are over the line,” said Rex Brynen of McGill University, author of a number of books and articles on contemporary Lebanon.
“Whether that is the ongoing occupation in the West Bank, or the level of violence in Gaza, or the initiation of a new military round against Iran and its clear request for ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon and the long-term presence of Israel, I think there is a recognition that Israel is engaging in very problematic behavior,” he said.
Lebanon has experienced many disasters over the years, starting with a flood of Syrian refugees in 2011, followed by an economic collapse and a catastrophic explosion that destroyed much of Beirut’s port.
Since 2019, the country has not held its breath,” said Doueik. “From the October Revolution to the port explosion to COVID-19 and then in 2023 there was a war with Hezbollah and now another war. So the situation is bad and it will get worse in the coming weeks.”
Three journalists in southern Lebanon were killed in a targeted Israeli strike on Saturday. Senior officials in Lebanon have condemned the strike, which President Joseph Aoun called a ‘flagrant and reckless crime that violates all laws and agreements protecting journalists.’ Israel said without providing evidence that one of the journalists was working for Hezbollah intelligence. The latest death brings the number of journalists and media workers killed this year in Lebanon to five.
Since the liquidity crisis began in 2019, Lebanon has lost nearly 40 percent of its GDP. The Lebanese pound has been devalued by more than 95 percent. Parents gave up their children to raise their children because they did not have money to support them.
“The World Bank has called the financial crisis one of the worst recessions in modern economic history,” said Brynen. “Now we see Israel’s threats to annihilate southern Lebanon, and the difficulties of the Lebanese government which remains weak. Lebanon is in a bad, bad situation right now.”
Hezbollah’s position weakened
Another change is the position of Hezbollah, the leading political group in the Shia Muslim community in Lebanon that was formed in the early 1980s during the Israeli occupation. The army has long been the most powerful army in the country.
Brynen says many in Lebanon now see Hezbollah as “very willing to sacrifice Lebanese citizens to advance Iran’s goals” and are “sick and tired of Hezbollah deciding on its own to drag Lebanon into war.”
But he said the Lebanese government’s new will to disarm Hezbollah needs time to bear fruit.
And in the event that Israel retakes Lebanese land, “Hezbollah begins to look like resistance again.”
Carney acknowledged the Lebanese government’s moves to arrest Hezbollah in his criticism of the Israeli attack.
The international community is increasingly critical of Israeli military operations in Gaza after alleged killings, talk of arrest warrants and airstrikes that killed civilians in Rafah. Andrew Chang breaks down the dynamics of the global situation, and how Israel is responding to pressure.
Ground zero of these struggles is in the villages along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Mayors and officials of predominantly Christian villages report receiving calls from the IDF telling them that Christians and Druze can live in Israeli-held territory. But the IDF reportedly ordered all Shia Muslims – who make up the majority of southern Lebanon’s population – to leave, and warned Christians not to endanger their homes and lives.
CBC News asked the Israeli government about those orders, but did not receive a response.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog has asked other countries to support Israel’s war in Lebanon, which he said marks a “historic moment,” which will then “change the entire course of the region.”
“It should be the Lebanese army that should do the job, but we know it has its limits,” he said. “We want Lebanon and its army to do the job.”
Doueik says this will mirror what happened in the 1980s.
“We have seen that some communities have actually expelled the displaced people because they are afraid that the IDF will really blow up these areas,” he said.
Brynen acknowledged that the IDF appears to be repeating its occupation strategy of 1982-2000.
A Catholic priest from one village, and the brother of a parish priest from another, were killed in the first days of the war by IDF tank fire and an IDF plane after ignoring orders to flee.
Fear causes displacement
Doueik says Israel’s efforts to separate Christians and Druze from their Shia Muslim neighbors risk causing long-term damage to social relations, still recovering from 18 years of Israeli rule marked by enforced disappearances and heavy use of torture.
As devastating as that attack was, the plan this time could be worse. Defense Minister Israel Katz used his X account to openly announce Israel’s intention to “accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes,” continuing a pattern that began in 2023.
Over the Passover weekend, the IDF bombed homes in villages near the border such as Naqoura, Taybeh, Ayta al-Shaab, Ramyah and Khiam. Between 40 and 60 towns and villages appear to have been destroyed.
Les crimes de guerre se poursuivent au sud du Liban, l’armée israeliene vient de démolir des dizaines d’habitations à l’aide d’explosifs à Naqoura. pic.twitter.com/o5w9USAywv
Doueik says Israel is “trying to create some kind of no-man’s land that runs along the border … and then a multi-tiered buffer zone.”
He says the fear of not being allowed to return makes many ignore Israeli orders to leave, as well as the inability of the country of Lebanon to help them.
“Many people prefer to stay in their homes even if there are bombings because they are ashamed to live on the streets of Beirut and other places,” he said.
Official figures show that the Lebanese government can only provide shelter to at least 180,000 people out of the more than one million people in the evacuation zone.
It’s a nightmare scenario
The most alarming difference between 2006 and 2026, says Brynen, is the presence in the Netanyahu government of hardliners committed to the vision of an Israel spread to neighboring countries.
“We should all remember that the West Bank also started like that in 1967,” he said. “It was a ‘security measure,’ and then the settlers started coming in. Right people in Israel have been arguing for a long time that not only the West Bank and Gaza should be part of Israel, but also Lebanon south of Litani.”
Doueik admits that the deepest fear in Lebanon is that Israeli territory aims to be annexed and settled.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is supported by people far from Israel, people like that [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Finance Minister] Bezalel Smotrich, who have been saying they want to expand Israel’s borders,” he said.
“And this is what the Lebanese fear the most, because they say that if the Lebanese army cannot protect us, then what or who will stop Israel from taking that land?”
