Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanonwarned that the Middle East is “on the brink of imminent catastrophe” following the recent escalation of violence between Israel and the Shiite group Hezbollah.
This is what he said in a statement published on the “X” account of the United Nations mission in Lebanon: “As the region stands on the brink of imminent catastrophe, this cannot be emphasized enough. “There is no military solution that can bring greater security to either side.”
All this after the Israeli bombing of the southern suburbs of Beirut, which caused at least 45 deaths. Among them, more than a dozen senior Hezbollah officials such as Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi, who led the operations of the group’s elite Radwan forces.
The bombing, in the area known as Dahye, came after a wave of simultaneous explosions of thousands of communications devices carried by Hezbollah operatives. 37 people died in these attacks and nearly 3,000 people were injured in different regions of Lebanon.
This offensive was followed by Israeli bombings against dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, while that Hezbollah responded by launching dozens of projectiles into northern Israel.
An escalation that has triggered all the alarms about the possible outbreak of an open war in the Middle East. Hezbollah, for its part, has repeatedly repeated that I don’t want to extend the conflictand that its attacks in northern Israel will cease if a ceasefire is reached in the Gaza Strip.
