Arab League urges Security Council to end tension in south Lebanon
Arab League Secretary General Nabil el-Arabi has called on the United Nations Security Council to take action to halt the deteriorating security situation in southern Lebanon.
“The Security Council should assume its responsibilities and intervene immediately to put an end to the Israeli assaults,” the Arab League official said on Wednesday.
The comments came after two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish UN peacekeeper were killed earlier in the day, when Lebanon’s resistance movement, Hezbollah, fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli military convoy in an Israel-occupied area. Eight other Israeli soldiers were also injured.
The Israeli regime responded with “combined aerial and ground strikes” on southern Lebanon after the attack, which was carried out in retaliation for a recent Israeli strike that left several top members of Hezbollah dead.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission said the precise cause of the peacekeeper’s death is “yet undetermined,” urging all sides to demonstrate “maximum restraint to prevent an escalation.”
Hezbollah said in a statement that its strikes had targeted an Israeli military convoy “transporting several Zionist soldiers and officers.”
Following the attack, Israeli military leaders held an emergency meeting to discuss a response as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military is “ready to act with force on any front.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also said in a message posted on Twitter that Israel should respond to the attack “in a very harsh and disproportionate manner.”
The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, meanwhile, hailed Hezbollah’s attack, with Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri saying, “We affirm Hezbollah’s right to respond to the Israeli occupation.”
Tensions have been on the rise in the area after an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian sector of the occupied Golan Heights killed six Hezbollah fighters and a top Iranian commander on January 18.
MR/HSN/SS
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