The head of European Union diplomacy, Josep Borrell, called on Sunday in Beirut for an “immediate ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, at a time when the Lebanese movement fired 160 projectiles towards Israeli territory.
The day after a day of particularly deadly Israeli bombings in Lebanon, which mainly targeted the heart of Beirut, Hezbollah announced on Sunday several drone and missile attacks against targets and military bases in the Tel Aviv region (center) and in southern Israel.
In Israel, warning sirens sounded in several regions, notably in the large suburbs of Tel Aviv, the army said, reporting 160 projectiles fired from neighboring Lebanon, some of which were intercepted. Damage was noted in Petah Tikva.
Shortly after the announcement of these projectiles by the army, the Lebanese National Information Agency (Ani) reported two Israeli strikes having hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.
The raids “caused massive destruction in a large geographical area” of Kafaat district, Ani added.
For its part, the Lebanese army, which is not involved in this war, announced that one of its soldiers had been killed and 18 others wounded in an Israeli attack on their position in southern Lebanon, a stronghold of the Hezbollah borders northern Israel.
“We see only one possible path: an immediate ceasefire and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” Mr. Borrell said after his talks with the Lebanese Prime Minister. Najib Mikati and the head of Parliament Nabih Berri.
“On the verge of collapse”
Resolution 1701, which ended the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, stipulates that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers be deployed on Lebanon’s southern border. This implies a withdrawal of Hezbollah, but also that of Israeli soldiers who have been carrying out a ground offensive there since September 30.
Israel says it wants to put Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, allies of Iran, its enemy, out of harm’s way. He vowed to destroy Hamas after the unprecedented attack of this Islamist movement on its soil on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, and seeks to stop Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on its territory .
On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah opened a “support front” for its Palestinian ally, the target of an Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza.
After a year of cross-border violence and after having weakened Hamas in Gaza, Israel moved the heart of its operations to Lebanon by launching an intense bombing campaign from September 23 on Hezbollah strongholds.
“We must put pressure on the Israeli government and maintain pressure on Hezbollah so that they accept the American ceasefire proposal,” Mr. Borrell said, stressing that the EU was ready to provide 200 million euros to help strengthen the Lebanese army.
“Rejection of the ceasefire”
The 13-point proposal, calling for a 60-day truce and army deployment in southern Lebanon, was discussed by US envoy Amos Hochstein who shuttled earlier this week between Lebanon and Israel.
But no results were announced and the pace of Israeli strikes, mainly against Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, accelerated after his mission.
“In September I came and I still hoped that we could prevent an open war by Israel against Lebanon. Two months later, Lebanon is on the verge of collapse,” added Mr. Borrell.
For Mr. Mikati, “the direct targeting by the Israeli enemy of a position of the (Lebanese) army is a direct and bloody message of rejection of all efforts to achieve a ceasefire.”
Lebanon’s Health Ministry estimates that at least 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most since September of this year. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians were killed in 13 months.
At least eleven dead in Gaza
On Israel’s southern front, in the besieged and devastated Gaza Strip, eleven Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes, according to local Civil Defense.
The director of Kamel Adwan Hospital, Hossam Abou Safiyeh, was seriously injured in a nighttime drone attack on the establishment in the north of the Palestinian territory, according to the same source.
This hospital is one of the last to still partially function in the Palestinian territory in the grip of a humanitarian disaster.
Considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel’s withdrawal from the territory it occupied for 38 years.
In response to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Israel launched a devastating military offensive in Gaza which left at least 44,211 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health, deemed reliable by the UN.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, including hostages killed or died in captivity. That day, 251 people were kidnapped, 97 of whom remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
