The United States is granting temporary immigration protections for thousands of Lebanese nationals as Israel continues a devastating month-long assault on their home country.
The protections include offering Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for eligible Lebanese nationals who arrived in the US before October 16, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Thursday.
With TPS, Lebanese citizens can stay in the US for 18 months and file for work permits due to the “ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions in Lebanon”, DHS said in a statement.
The new measures are expected to cover some 11,000 Lebanese nationals currently in the US, according to the department.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) welcomed the “important measures” to keep Lebanese citizens out of an active war zone but called on the US to stop arming Israel with the very weapons being used against Lebanon.
“It is not lost on us that these nationals are in this position to begin with because of US foreign policy,” ADC executive director Abed Ayoub said in a statement.
“It is unfathomable that the Biden-Harris Administration continues to provide the weapons, military support, and diplomatic cover for Israel to continue its genocidal march into Lebanon.”
The US offers TPS to visitors and temporary residents from countries that Washington deems unsafe for people to return to.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has suggested that it opposes an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. It argues that Washington supports the Israeli campaign to degrade Hezbollah while the group is “on the back foot” after the assassination of several of its leaders.
But the DHS statement on Thursday cited US diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
“Those approved for TPS will be able to remain in the country while the United States is in discussions to achieve a diplomatic resolution for lasting stability and security across the Israel-Lebanon border,” DHS said.
Turning Lebanese villages ‘unlivable’
Israel launched an intensified aerial campaign on its neighbour Lebanon on September 23, claiming to target Hezbollah fighters in the country. Since then, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,356 people, hundreds of them women and children, while displacing more than 1.2 million people.
At least one of the people killed in Israel’s attacks was a US citizen – longtime Michigan resident Kamel Jawad.
The US – which has sent Israel at least $17.9bn in military aid in the last year, according to a recent report – has expressed concern over the broadening “scope” of Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, but said it continues to back Israel’s efforts “to take on Hezbollah”.
When asked about the Israeli forces’ bombardment of the southern Lebanese village of Mhaibib Wednesday, which wiped out an entire neighbourhood, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing: “I cannot speak to what their intent was or what they were trying to accomplish.”
When pressed on the scale of the attack, Miller added: “I don’t know what was in those buildings. I don’t know what was potentially underneath those buildings. That’s why I said I can’t speak to what they were trying to accomplish”.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Beirut, said the Mhaibib attack was part of Israel’s strategy to render Lebanon’s border villages “unlivable” so evacuated residents will not be able to return, even in the event of a potential settlement.
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