Hezbollah and Israeli forces have launched the most extensive mutual attacks to date since a massacre by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Israel sparked a devastating war in the Gaza Strip it controls.
UN Secretary General António Guterres expressed his concern to CNN that “Lebanon will become another Gaza”.
The UN Special Coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plashaert, warned on platform “X” that the Middle East is facing an almost “inevitable catastrophe”. She emphasized that no side increases its security by military means.
Guterres also stated that neither Israel nor Hamas is interested in concluding a ceasefire to end the war, which has been going on for almost a year.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that escalating the conflict is not in the interests of US ally Israel.
The US is saying this “directly to our Israeli partners” and believes “there is a possible time and place for a diplomatic solution and we are working towards that,” he told ABC.
The European Union expressed “extreme concern” at the escalation of violence and called for an urgent ceasefire.
An all-out war must be averted “by, among other things, renewed intensive diplomatic mediation efforts,” said the 27-nation bloc’s high representative on foreign affairs and security policy.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy called on Israel and Hezbollah for an “immediate ceasefire” to the “worrying escalation”.
Addressing the annual conference of the British Labor Party, he said the ceasefire would facilitate “a political solution so that Israeli and Lebanese civilians can return to their homes and live in peace and security”.
Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelaty, warned that an all-out regional war could break out and that the escalation would “negatively affect” the Cairo-brokered ceasefire talks in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s army chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, vowed on Sunday to “strike anyone who threatens” Israel.
He explained that the military operation against Hezbollah is a “clear message” to the country’s enemies in the region and beyond.
Meanwhile, Hizbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, announced that the group had begun a ‘”new phase” in the fight against Israel. He called it “open reckoning.”
It is the first time Hezbollah has commented on its next course of action after Ibrahim Akil, the commander of the movement’s military wing, was killed in an Israeli attack in Beirut on Friday.
Qassem reiterated that only a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip would stop his group’s cross-border attacks, warning that “Israel’s military solution increases the dilemma of Israel and the people of the north of the country.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday an expansion of the country’s war aims to include the return of northern Israelis displaced by the fighting.
Since the October 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group that sparked the Gaza war, Hezbollah has engaged in daily cross-border firefights with Israeli forces in support of Hamas.
Violence has risen sharply in recent days, with Israel and Hezbollah exchanging heavy blows over the weekend, raising fears of an all-out war.
2024-09-23 16:16:31