As a result of the Israeli attack, which began on Monday morning, 23 September, 569 people were killed in Lebanon, including 50 children, and 1,835 were injured, Health Minister Firas Abiad told Al Jazeera. The UN Security Council said it would meet on Wednesday to discuss the conflict.
“Lebanon is on the brink of the abyss. The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel and the people of the entire world cannot allow Lebanon to become a second Gaza.” – said the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
At the UN General Assembly, which meets this week, the US president Joe Biden He asked for calm.
“A full-scale war is of no benefit to anyone. Even if the situation has worsened, a diplomatic solution is still possible.” – said.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bu Habib He criticised Biden’s speech as “unpromising” and said the United States is the only country “that can really change the situation in the Middle East and in relation to Lebanon”. Washington is a long-standing ally of Israel and a major arms supplier.
The United States “is the key… to our salvation,” he said at an event in New York organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.***.
In Beirut, thousands of displaced people fleeing southern Lebanon have taken refuge in schools and other buildings.
Up to half a million people are estimated to have been displaced in Lebanon, Bou Habib said. He added that the Lebanese prime minister is expected to meet with US officials in the next two days.
The United States and other mediators, Qatar and Egypt, have so far tried, without success, to broker a ceasefire in the nearly year-long war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah.
In turn, the president of Iran Masoud Pezeshkianwhose country and Israel are sworn enemies, told the United Nations General Assembly that the international community must “ensure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and end Israel’s desperate barbarism in Lebanon before it engulfs the region and the world.”
The Israeli military said its air force carried out “massive strikes” on Tuesday against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, including weapons depots and dozens of missile launchers targeting Israeli territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant He stressed that the attacks have weakened Hezbollah and will continue. Hezbollah “suffered losses among its commanders, fighters and combat assets. These are all serious blows,” he told Israeli soldiers. At the same time, he accused the UN of shirking its responsibility to prevent Hezbollah attacks against Israel.
Hezbollah said it fired rockets at the Dado military base in northern Israel and attacked the Atlit naval base south of Haifa with drones.
Israeli missiles are also believed to have been fired at the Syrian port city of Tartus and intercepted by Syrian air defences, Syrian army sources said. The Israeli military declined to comment on this report.
“We are not afraid. Even if we are killed, dismembered and destroyed,” – says Hezbollah.
*An organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent.
**An organization whose activities are recognized as undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation.
