UN: Israeli escalation of war in Lebanon needs to stop
The United Nations has emphasized that the Israeli escalation of the war in Lebanon needs to stop at once, amid the deadly violence and bombing by the Israeli regime.
The UN voiced deep concern on Monday “about the escalation in Lebanon,” where the Israeli regime's recent attacks have killed a multitude of Lebanese people, including women and children.
“The attacks that we saw on the communication devices, the pagers, followed by rocket attacks and rocket fire being exchanged on both sides … marks a real escalation,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN rights office, told AFP.
“What we’ve been warning about all along, the regional spillover of the conflict, it appears that both the actions and the rhetoric of the parties to the conflict is taking the conflict to another level.”
After nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, the strikes since the weekend are the most intense since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Shamdasani highlighted the calls from across the international community “pleading for a de-escalation”.
“But instead of a de-escalation, what we have seen … is further rhetoric with further plans of an escalation,” she said.
"We are extremely concerned, deeply worried about the escalation in Lebanon," she emphasized. “This needs to stop.”
UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, told the Security Council on Friday that the attack on communications devices violated international law and could constitute a war crime.
Without attributing the attack on the pager devices, Shamdasani stressed that "it is a war crime to commit violence that is intended to spread terror among civilians".
"The simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether they are civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge of where these people will be ... this is not acceptable under international law."
The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, whose members are among the casualties, blames the unprecedented attacks on the Israeli regime, pledging massive retaliation against the Israeli occupation forces.
The Tel Aviv regime and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire since the occupying zionist forces launched a genocidal war on Palestinians trapped in the besieged Gaza Strip in October last year, which has claimed the lives of more than 41,400 people, most of them helpless women and children.
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