UN Fears Soaring Violence After Israel Kills Top Hezbollah Leader, Ibrahim Aqil
- IDF airstrike on Beirut kills 14 persons, injures 66
- Amid fears of escalating violence, devastating regional conflict
The United Nations (UN) has warned that continuous violence between Israel and Iran’s allies Hezbollah and Hamas could further ignite a devastating regional conflict following the Israeli airstrike in Beirut, the capital and largest city of Lebanon, which killed at least 14 people.
The warning came late on Friday from UN Political Affairs Chief, Rosemary DiCarlo who said; “We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far.”
It was the latest in a series of attacks that rocked Lebanon this week, after an extraordinary two-stage operation that made thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies commonly carried by Hezbollah members explode simultaneously.
The operation, presumed to have been carried out by Israel, left more than 3,000 people wounded and at least 42 dead.
Speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council which had been convened to discuss Israel’s attacks, Rosemary DiCarlo said; “It is not too late to avoid such folly. There is still room for diplomacy. I also strongly urge member states with influence over the parties to leverage it now.”
Also, Robert Wood, the Deputy US Ambassador to the UN, repeated Washington’s assertions that the US had played no role in the attacks and urged all parties to “refrain from any actions which could plunge the region into a devastating war”.
Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, who had earlier said Israel’s attacks would continue, wrote on X: “The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.”
Friday’s attack was the third time Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, has been hit by an Israeli airstrike since fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started on 8 October last year after the former launched rockets “in solidarity” with Hamas’s attack the previous day.
Videos of the aftermath showed burnt cars and rubble thrown across the street from a building whose first two floors appeared to have been blown out. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that four rockets had struck the building in Jamous, a residential area in southern Beirut, during rush hour.
The Lebanese Civil Defence asked citizens to remain indoors to keep roads clear for emergency workers transporting the wounded to hospitals. Lebanese people shared pictures of loved ones who had gone missing in the aftermath of the strike, attaching their phone numbers in case anyone had seen them.
Thursday night witnessed the most intense series of Israeli airstrikes carried out in south Lebanon since October. Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes on border villages across the south, marking what the Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said was the beginning of a new phase in the war.
Hassan Cheet, a first responder in the border village of Kafr Kila, said: “The destruction is as far as you can see. They brought down about 30 houses overnight. An entire neighbourhood was levelled.”
Sharing pictures of flattened houses and rescue vehicles clearing rubble from the main road along the border fence with Israel, where emergency workers were accompanied by UN peacekeepers for their safety, Cheet said; “Thank God there were no civilians or human losses. The rest can be dealt with.”
In response to the Israeli barrage, Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets at northern Israel on Friday morning, hitting Israeli military bases in the occupied Golan Heights.
