A strange case is presenting itself as Israel expands its onslaught to include Lebanon. While generously providing aid to Lebanon with one hand, the European Union (EU) is effectively waving in Israel’s bombers with the other. In response to Hizbullah’s cross-border attacks, the south of the country has been pounded by Israeli bombing for a year. In the last two weeks airstrikes have increased dramatically as Israel vowed to destroy Hizbullah and embarked on an invasion of the south, once again. Since 7 October 2023 Israel carried out nearly 8,000 strikes on Lebanon, leaving a trail of destruction, killing more than 2,000 people and wounding 10,000 others.¹ Israeli air bombing now hits the south of the country and further up north, from the Biqa’ to Beirut and its southern suburbs, Byblos, Tripoli and at the border with Syria. As former Lebanese minister and UN mediator Ghassan Salamé put it, “an enormous machine of death has moved from Gaza to Lebanon.”² And yet Lebanon’s “partner”, the EU, is not making a peep. It is doing nothing to compel the Israeli government to stop its onslaught, first in Gaza and now in Lebanon. No real pressure, no sanctions, and no suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. In fact, EU member states continue to deliver arms to Israel.

Given the current violence, few Lebanese are likely to recall, let alone take comfort in, the lofty promises made by the EU in 2006 when it offered Lebanon a "renewed partnership" based on "shared values" and "mutual interests" under the EU's "neighbourhood policy."³ The promise of that EU-Lebanon partnership did not fall short of ambition. The shared values destined to receive a major boost encompassed “human rights and fundamental freedoms” and “respect of democratic principles” just as the EU committed itself to bringing to its Lebanese partner “a common area of peace, prosperity and stability.” Underscoring that these were not just words, the document listing “EU-Lebanon partnership priorities” mentioned 12 times that its aims were to be followed up by “action”. Putting their money where their mouth is, the EU and its member states provided Lebanon since 2015 with aid and financial assistance worth US$2.3 billion.⁴ Last May, the EU committed to a financial assistance package of another €1 billion, to be spent before 2027.

Yet the EU-Lebanon partnership, whether in letter or spirit, did not discourage member states from continuing to export weapons that Israel has been turning against Gaza and now Lebanon. Germany, Romania and Italy together provide Israel for more than thirty percent of its total arms imports, worth US$1.9 billion between 2018 and 2022.⁵ Germany’s arms exports to Israel reportedly increased tenfold in 2023.⁶ Other EU member states, including France and the Netherlands, provide essential components for arms supplied to Israel like drones and F-35 fighter aircraft. Suggestions to suspend these exports have been firmly rejected or prompted only half-hearted measures that failed to stop them. The Dutch government insists on exporting F-35 spare parts that end up in aircraft used by the Israeli Air Force even when a domestic court decision ruled against this. Within walking distance of the Dutch government’s office buildings are the premises of two other courts, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. The first ordered Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide convention, imposing an obligation on third states to refrain from assisting Israel’s illegal conduct. The second is preparing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar for war crimes. EU funding of academic research reportedly continued to facilitate the development of “dual use” technology benefiting Israeli arms companies Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries.7 In turn, Israeli arms companies provided the EU with “battle tested” technology like drones used by the EU’s border guard agency Frontex in surveying migration movements in the Mediterranean.⁸  

From Brussels there has not been a single decision or measure to compel or encourage Israel to stop its military onslaught on Gaza and now in Lebanon. Sanctions, arms embargoes, reviewing or suspending the association agreement with Israel, freezing or reducing technical and financial cooperation, imposing aid conditionalities on institutional “twinning”; none of these instruments have been considered.  Even mere expressions of sympathy with those targeted by Israel’s violence have been in short supply. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen consistently expressed her unconditional support for Israel, even when her own staff at the EU objected to her “indifference” to the “ongoing massacre” of civilians soon after Israel went on a rampage in Gaza.⁹ Von der Leyen has yet to denounce Israeli’s indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon although she was quick to condemn Iran’s missile attack on Israel on 1 October.¹⁰ On the occasion of the anniversary of the 7 October attacks in Israel she stated that “our hearts are [..] with the Jewish communities across the world.”¹¹ After months of procrastinating and failing to even acknowledge the need for a cease-fire in Gaza, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has become more vocal in his criticisms of Israel’s brutality, including more recently its pounding of Lebanon. Yet he seems to serve more of an audience on X (formerly Twitter) than having an impact on EU policymaking.

One may forgive ordinary Lebanese for noting a glaring discrepancy between, on the one hand, the EU’s partnership initiative supposedly serving them in “peace, prosperity and stability” and its failure to stand up against Israel’s machine of death, on the other. In this sense the discrepancy is reminiscent of “the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde,” the 19th century Gothic horror novella by Scottish author Robert L. Stevenson. Just as Dr. Jekyll compassionately treated his patients, the EU has been supporting Lebanon. And like the remorseless Mr. Hyde in which Dr. Jekyll transformed by drinking a strange potion, the EU is now complicit in Israel’s wanton mass violence, either by inaction, by facilitating it, or both.

Since 2011 the EU extended US$3 billion to ensure that Syrian refugees and vulnerable youth in Lebanese host communities have access to education and healthcare while receiving livelihood support and protection.¹² Yet according to the Lebanese government, in the last two weeks more than 300,000 people have left Lebanon for Syria to flee Israel’s bombing, most of them Syrian refugees.¹³ As per 10 October, over one million, Lebanese have become a refugee in their own country as they too were bombed out of their homes by Israel.¹⁴ As Israel’s indiscriminate bombing intensifies, these numbers are only expected to rise. The EU has spent millions of euros in aid to Lebanon’s schools to ensure that “vulnerable children continue receiving quality education”: “Investing in education for all in Lebanon has been a priority for the European Union since 2017.”¹⁵ Yet due to Israeli bombing, 40 percent of the country’s 1.25 million school pupils have been displaced and schools were forced to postpone the start of the academic year. The EU provides significant assistance to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Yet according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, 20,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced by Israeli airstrikes on camps in Lebanon, including the country’s largest camp ‘Ayn al-Hilweh on 1 October.¹⁶

For years, the EU has supported Lebanon's healthcare sector, helping to establish primary healthcare centers across the country. Since 2015, these centers have served 5.7 million people, including both Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugee.¹⁷ Both the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health and the World Health Organisation have now warned that the health system is on the verge of collapse as Israeli attacks continue and the disruption of Beirut’s airport thwarts medical supplies.¹⁸ Since October 2023, Israel targeted healthcare facilities in Lebanon at least 36 times, killing at least 77 health workers. More than 90 primary healthcare centers and five hospitals were forced to close while ten hospitals reported damages.¹⁹ As a result, Lebanon now faces what the World Health Organization described as “a situation where there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks, such as acute watery diarrhea, hepatitis A, and a number of vaccine preventable diseases.”²⁰ On 3 October, a convoy of the Lebanese Red Cross, escorted by Lebanese troops, came under Israeli fire, killing one soldier and wounding three Red Cross volunteers.²¹ The Israeli military has accused Hizbullah of using ambulances to transport weapons and fighters. In Gaza similar accusations against Hamas prompted the Israeli military to treat ambulances as fair game. 

The Lebanese army has been another recipient of significant EU aid. Through its European Peace Facility, the EU aims “to strengthen the capabilities and the resilience of the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces] to ensure the national security and stability of Lebanon.”²² The support includes €6 million worth of aid to support the LAF’s efforts to monitor and control borders. Yet in the first week of October Israel killed two Lebanese soldiers, one accompanying the Lebanese Red Cross as mentioned earlier and the other in an Israeli attack on a military post in Bint Jbeil in the south.²³ Under-resourced and badly equipped, the Lebanese army withdrew from the Blue Line, the de-facto border between Israel and Lebanon, where they were exposed to Israeli fire. It is said that an implicit agreement imposed by the US ensures that the LAF will not get involved in the war. Not that the LAF needs to be stopped from defending the country’s sovereignty as it never received equipment that would match Israel’s arsenal subsidized and supplied by the US. Adding insult to injury, the Israeli air force bombed the country’s civilian border crossing at Masna’ on 4 October, severing the only exit route for those somehow hoping to find refuge in Syria.

For decades the EU spent millions of euros to patch up Lebanon’s ailing agricultural sector. In January 2023, it allocated €25 million to “help strengthening Lebanese agricultural and agri-food systems” thereby reducing the country’s growing dependency on imports of food and grain. “The productive capacity of Lebanese farmers shall be increased,” the EU announced.²⁴ In just one year, that promise has been undone by Israel as it destroyed tens of thousands of olive trees and 1,900 hectares of farmland in the south, robbing 46,000 farmers of their livelihoods.²⁵ Given this scale of destruction, the World Food Program’s Lebanon country director on 8 October voiced his “extraordinary concern about Lebanon’s ability to feed itself.”2⁶

Furthermore, the EU supports Lebanon’s preservation of its national heritage, recognizing that it is “not only crucial for revitalizing Lebanon’s identity and unity, but also for fostering economic growth and innovation.”²⁷ On 6 October, an Israeli air strike hit a target 500 to 700 meters from the famous Roman Temple of Jupiter in Baalbak, an UNESCO World Heritage site of the second-century A.D., killing five people.²⁸ The week before, Baalbak suffered over 150 Israeli air strikes, reportedly killing hundreds of people.²⁹ Another Israeli air strike caused significant damage to an Ottoman cemetery in Bachoura, Beirut.³⁰ Fears are that if Israeli strikes escalate further Lebanon may suffer the same fate as Gaza where the Israeli military systematically destroyed cultural heritage.³¹ 

While virtually all EU’s aid initiatives with its partner Lebanon are under Israeli fire or face the threat of Israeli attacks, one would expect the EU to be deeply concerned, speak out and take strong measures to reign in Israel. Leaving aside ethical or principled concerns, one would think the EU does not like to see its financial investments in Lebanon to be vaporised by ruthless Israeli military action. Some EU member states are notoriously stringent when it comes to the EU's finances for development aid. In the Netherlands, a right-wing politician, Reinette Klever, was recently appointed Minister for Development Cooperation after she had advocated scrapping that ministry altogether to cut expenditures. The EU says it has bolstered its aid procedures ensuring transparency and accountability, especially after institutional failure contributed to the Port of Beirut explosion in August 2020. France, in particular, insisted that Lebanon’s corrupt political class should not be allowed to pose a drain on EU assistance to the country, prompting promises by President Emmanuel Macron to skirt them altogether. Yet strangely, the EU’s prioritization of its relations with Israel seems to overshadow such financial concerns. If Israeli bombing is to pulverize EU-financed projects in Lebanon, that still does not seem to cause EU decision-makers to lose much sleep. One may wonder what European taxpayers will come to think of that.

Yet for the EU, the biggest cost of Israel’s assault on Lebanon will be by squandering its Lebanese interlocutors’ trust in their country’s supposed partnership with Europe. What are Lebanese civil society activists, aid workers, medics, soldiers and farmers to think of the EU that allowed and enabled Israel’s scorched earth doctrine, arrogantly named after Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Dahyieh, which are once more being turned to dust? What are ordinary Lebanese supposed to think of the Mediterranean dream that the EU promised them when the country joined its “neighbourhood policy” and entered its “renewed partnership” when Israel’s machine of death has done to Lebanon what it did to Gaza? In their future visits to Lebanon EU delegates will undoubtedly remind their hosts of the €100 million humanitarian aid the EU generously provided to the country amidst the current conflict.³² Yet, it is mainly for Mr. Hyde that the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is remembered. In fact, having run out of magic potion to reverse his metamorphosis, Dr Jekyll was never to be seen again.