As more disapproving glares focus on Israel for the reckless and indiscriminate killings it’s racking up in its ongoing attempt to annex southern Lebanon and goad the region into an all-out war, it should give pause to making threats on international humanitarian organizations.

Yet when the UN let Israeli officials know they’d be sending a team of Chinese engineers to repair a damaged bridge linking Beirut to Tyre so such luxuries as medicine and tourniquets could be trucked across, Israel responded that those engineers would promptly be added to the broad IDF list of viable targets.

With Israeli airstrikes already making rescue work difficult, and Israel refusing any security guarantees, the recent deliberate destruction of the route over the Litani River has handed aid workers one more setback.

“We must be able to have movement throughout the country to deliver supplies,” complained the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, David Shearer. “The deliberate targetting of civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law.” Unfortunately, Israel and international law have never been on the best of terms.

» Scott Saxon