Global chorus against Israeli ground op in Lebanon raises pressure for ceasefire
UN warns of how the fighting will impact the Lebanese; European nations fret even a limited incursion could get bogged down; Russia, China, Turkey urge IDF withdrawal
A host of countries as well as the United Nations urged Israel to halt its military operation in Lebanon on Tuesday while stressing the need to reach a ceasefire as soon as possible.
The UN warned of the impact fighting would have on Lebanese civilians, and Britain, Spain, and Italy worried about the danger of igniting a broader regional conflict.
Israel on Tuesday announced that it had launched limited raids into southern Lebanon overnight against Hezbollah forces and infrastructure positioned along Israel’s northern border after a year of the Iran-backed terror group’s attacks on the north of the country.
The move is part of an Israeli effort to push Hezbollah forces away from the border so that thousands of evacuated Israelis can safely return to their home in the north.
The UN warned Israel against a “large-scale ground invasion” of Lebanon.
“With armed violence between Israel and Hezbollah boiling over, the consequences for civilians have already been terrible,” Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for the UN rights office, told reporters in Geneva.
“We fear a large-scale ground invasion by Israel into Lebanon would only result in greater suffering,” she warned.
Before the ground assault, Israel’s escalating strikes on Lebanon reportedly killed more than 1,000 people in two weeks, Throssell pointed out. Figures from Lebanese officials do not differentiate between Hezbollah fighters and civilians.
The violence has also forced up to a million people to flee their homes, according to Lebanese officials.
Throssell additionally pointed out that more than 60,000 residents of Israel had been displaced amid Hezbollah’s missile fire over the past year.
She also noted the tensions between Israel and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have been firing missiles and drones at Israel, supposedly in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
“The impact of the escalation resulting from Houthi missile fire from Yemen into Israel and Israeli attacks in response are also deeply troubling,” she added, urging all parties to the conflicts to “do all they can to protect the lives of civilians.”
“Too many innocent children, women, and men have been killed, and too much destruction has been exacted,” she said.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said it was “deeply concerned” about the Israeli ground offensive.
“We urge all parties to prioritize the protection of civilians, adhere to international humanitarian law, and engage in immediate de-escalation to prevent further loss of life and to prevent further suffering,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters.
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said: “This cycle of violence will not end well for anyone.”
Jerusalem officials have reportedly clarified to the US that the scope of the operation will be limited and is aimed only at driving Hezbollah’s forces away from the border area.
However, some global leaders fretted that once inside Lebanese territory, the Israel Defense Forces would be drawn into a bigger conflict or that the fighting would explode into a regional war.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said nobody wanted a return to the past with Israel fighting in southern Lebanon over a long period, adding the price of a regional Middle Eastern war would be “huge.”
“None of us want to return to the years in which Israel found itself bogged down in a quagmire in southern Lebanon,” Lammy told broadcasters, referring to the 1982 First Lebanon War, which saw Israel maintain a security buffer zone in Lebanon for nearly 20 years.
Israel should cease conducting ground raids in southern Lebanon to avoid an escalation of the conflict enveloping the wider region, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters.
“We insist that the ground incursion should be halted, as we’re receiving very worrying information,” Albares said, adding that it was “necessary to reach a truce in Lebanon and a ceasefire in Gaza.”
The fighting in Lebanon was spawned by the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. The next day, Hezbollah began its assaults along Israel’s northern border saying it was supporting Gaza.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday that “a de-escalation at the regional level is urgent and necessary.”
“The protection of civilians remains the priority along with guaranteeing the security of the Italian military contingent of UNIFIL present in southern Lebanon,” she said in a statement.
Italy, which holds the G7 rotating presidency, is working with allies to stabilize the situation along Israeli-Lebanon border and to help people who have been displaced by the fighting return to their homes, Meloni said.
“None of us want to see a regional war. The price would be huge for the Middle East and it would have a significant effect on the global economy.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow “strongly condemns the attack on Lebanon and calls on the Israeli authorities to immediately cease hostilities, withdraw their troops from Lebanese territory and engage in a real search for peaceful ways to resolve the Middle East conflict.”
Referring to the raids, the statement said: “It is obvious that such a step taken by the Israeli military and political leadership following the assassination of a number of Hezbollah leaders will lead to a further escalation of violence in the Middle East region.”
Moscow’s ally China, in a foreign ministry statement, said it is “highly concerned about the current situation between Lebanon and Israel and is deeply concerned about the further escalation of regional tensions due to related military actions.”
Turkey condemned Israel’s ground offensive as an “unlawful invasion attempt” and called for the withdrawal of its troops.
“This attack must end as soon as possible and Israeli soldiers must withdraw from Lebanese territory,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
It urged the UN Security Council to “comply with international law and take the necessary measures.”
The UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, UNIFIL, warned any crossing into the country “is in violation of Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity. Civilians must be protected, civilian infrastructure must not be targeted and international law must be respected.”
While the US had voiced concern earlier on Monday that even a limited incursion could spread further once it was already underway, the Biden administration appeared to express its support for the raids by way of a call between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“We agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border to ensure that Lebanese Hezbollah cannot conduct October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern communities,” Austin said in the Pentagon’s readout of the call.
The Israeli ground incursion came after a sharp spike in the conflict with Hezbollah. Over the past two weeks, Israel has bombed thousands of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon while the Iran-backed terror group has rained rockets on the north of the country. Rocket fire penetrated deeper into Tuesday with a barrage fired at the center of the country, including the Tel Aviv metropolis.
On October 7 Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people. Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas and free hundreds of hostages who were abducted to Gaza during the Hamas attack.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 516 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 92 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.
Hezbollah stopped releasing casualty figures in the wake of the recent Israeli strikes.
