Ayatollah Sistani calls for urgent action to halt brutal Israeli aggression on Lebanon

Iraq’s prominent Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has expressed his solidarity with Lebanon amid latest deadly Israeli strikes on the Arab country, calling for urgent efforts to cease the regime’s brutal aggression and protect Lebanese civilians.

“During these difficult times, the honorable Lebanese nation has been increasingly subjected to various forms of Israeli aggression, including the detonation of large numbers of personal communication devices and attacks on densely populated residential neighborhoods.

“Intense airstrikes have been carried out on dozens of villages and towns in southern Lebanon as well as Bekaa Valley, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of a significant number of heroic resistance fighters and other innocent civilians, and the displacement of tens of thousands of people from their homes,” the top Iraqi cleric said in a statement on Monday.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani went on to voice his solidarity with Lebanon and appealed for all-out efforts to be made in order to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression and defend Lebanese people against its devastating effects.

He prayed for the protection of the Lebanese nation against any potential harm and sinister plot and wished divine mercy for the martyrs along with a speedy recovery for the wounded.

Lebanon’s caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad says Israeli air attacks have killed at least 274 people, including 21 children, 39 women and two medics, while more than 1,000 others have been wounded.

The minister added that the Israeli attacks have targeted medical centers, ambulances and cars of people trying to leave.

All nurseries across Lebanon have been closed and schools will be shut for two days in areas hit by Israeli strikes, according to education authorities.

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The United Nations has voiced deep worry “about the escalation in Lebanon.”

“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 news agency

“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,” she noted.

Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have incrementally escalated since the occupying regime launched a ruinous war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip in October last year, which has killed at least 41,455 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

The two sides have on a near-daily basis exchanged heavy fire resulting in the loss of more than 600 lives on the Lebanese side.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on September 19 that the deadly wireless device explosions by Israel amount to a declaration of war on Lebanon, vowing a harsh response to the regime.

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