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September 24, 2024 – 10:50 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) A “generalized war” in Lebanon is in no one’s interest, US President Joe Biden argued Tuesday at the UN podium. Israel announced in the wake of this that it would continue its attacks on the country, now “on the brink of the abyss” according to the UN chief.
“A generalized war is in no one’s interest. Even if the situation escalates, a diplomatic solution is always possible,” insisted the American president, who delivered his last speech in New York at this annual UN high mass.
Concern over this escalation between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian Hamas, dominated the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
A ceasefire agreement in Gaza must be “finalized now,” Joe Biden insisted. The United States is leading negotiations with Qatar and Egypt with Israel and Hamas for an agreement to silence the weapons and release the hostages.
Palestinian Hamas has demanded “immediate action” by the UN to end the war in the Gaza Strip. It has said it rejects new negotiations for a ceasefire that would give Israel “cover to continue its aggression.”
Lebanon “on the brink”
“Gaza is a permanent nightmare that threatens to drag the entire region into chaos,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said, as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas looked on. Abbas was sitting for the first time, in alphabetical order, among the other leaders, thanks to new rights granted to the “observer state” of Palestine.
“The Lebanese people, the Israeli people and the people of the world cannot afford for Lebanon to become another Gaza,” Mr. Guterres added. “We should all be alarmed by this escalation. Lebanon is on the brink.”
“The UN system is dying in Gaza”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of “dragging the entire region into war.” “The UN system is dying in Gaza, not just the children,” he also told world leaders, calling the UN a “dysfunctional structure.”
“The values that the West claims to defend are dying… I ask the question openly: Hey, human rights organizations, aren’t those living in Gaza and the West Bank human beings?” he continued, accusing Israel of committing genocide.
New “massive” attacks on Lebanon
Nearly a year after the start of the war in the small Palestinian territory, triggered by the attack by the Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, the conflict threatens to spread to the Middle East.
Israel announced on Tuesday a new wave of “massive” strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the day after multiple bombings. These left 558 dead, including 50 children and 94 women, and 1,835 wounded, according to the Lebanese authorities, the heaviest human toll in one day since the end of the civil war (1975-1990).
Tens of thousands of people, according to the UN, have fled the bombed areas towards Saida, the largest city in the south, Beirut or Syria.
The head of a health center in Saksakiyeh, near Sidon, described scenes of horror. There were “many dead: children, women, people whose limbs, noses or hands had been torn off, their heads broken”, others “disemboweled”, said Dr. Moussa Youssef, stressing that “90% of the wounded” who arrived at the center “were children”.
Commander “eliminated”
A source close to Hezbollah announced the death of one of its commanders, Ibrahim Kobeissi, in the Israeli attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of the powerful pro-Iranian group. Israel claimed earlier to have “eliminated” him.
The attack killed six people, according to the health ministry, and destroyed two floors of a building in a densely populated area, according to an AFP photographer.
Israel has “no desire” to invade Lebanon on the ground and would prefer a diplomatic solution to end its conflict with Hezbollah, assured the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, recalling that the aim of the operation in Lebanon was to bring home tens of thousands of inhabitants of northern Israel.
Hezbollah said it fired 90 rockets targeting the headquarters of the Israeli army’s northern command near Safed. It also said it used Fadi 2 rockets for the first time since the start of the Gaza war to target military sites near Haifa, the major northern port, and the city of Kiryat Shmona.
“Incomprehensible inaction”
Iran’s new President Massoud Pezeshkian, whose country supports Hezbollah and Hamas, called the United Nations’ “inaction” toward Israel over Gaza and attacks on Lebanon “insane and incomprehensible.”
“We are on the brink of total war” in Lebanon, warned the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell on Monday evening, while France requested an emergency meeting of the Security Council during this already overloaded diplomatic week.
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