EU urges immediate halt to Israel-Hezbollah war
Two months after war, Lebanon is on the brink of collapse, EU diplomat Borrell says
BEIRUT: Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war while on a visit to Lebanon on Sunday, as the militant group claimed a wave of cross-border attacks.
Earlier this week, US special envoy Amos Hochstein said in Lebanon that a truce deal was “within our grasp”, and then headed to Israel for talks with officials there.
War between Israel and Hezbollah escalated in late September, nearly a year after the Iran-backed group began launching strikes in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7 attack.
The conflict has killed at least 3,670 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.
In the Lebanese capital, Borrell held talks with parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of ally Hezbollah.
“We see only one possible way ahead: an immediate ceasefire and the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701,” Borrell said after his meeting with Berri.
Under Resolution 1701, which ended the last Hezbollah-Israel war of 2006, only Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be allowed to maintain a presence in the south, where Hezbollah holds sway.
It also called for Israel to withdraw troops from Lebanon.
“Back in September I came and was still hoping we could prevent a full-fledged war of Israel attacking Lebanon. Two months later Lebanon is on the brink of collapse,” Borrell said.
He said the European Union was ready to provide 200 million euros ($208 million) to help bolster the Lebanese armed forces.
Hezbollah is one of the world’s best-armed non-state forces, and was the only group in Lebanon that refused to surrender its arsenal after the 1975-1990 civil war.
64 killed in strikes
In also claimed to have carried out an operation against a “military target” in Tel Aviv using “a barrage of advanced missiles and a swarm of strike drones”.
The Israeli military said air raid sirens were activated in several areas of central and northern Israel, adding that it had intercepted projectiles fired from Lebanon.
Israel’s emergency medical service Magen David Adom said it had provided treatment to two people including a 70-year-old woman who was mildly injured.
On Saturday, Lebanon said Israeli strikes around the country killed more than 64 people, many of them in central Beirut.
One strike on the working-class Basta neighbourhood of Beirut killed at least 29 people and wounded 66 others, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
“We saw two dead people on the ground... The children started crying and their mother cried even more,” said Samir, 60, who lives in a building facing the one destroyed.
In a phone call with Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Saturday, Washington’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “reiterated US commitment to a diplomatic resolution” in the Lebanon war, a Pentagon spokesperson said.
A spokesman for Katz said he commended US efforts towards de-escalation in Lebanon, but said Israel would “continue to act decisively in response to Hezbollah’s attacks on civilian populations in Israel”.
Hostage claim
On the Gaza front, Hamas’s armed wing said Saturday that an Israeli hostage, captured during the group’s October 7 attack which triggered the war, had been killed.
Israel’s military said it could neither “confirm nor refute” the claim.
Israeli protesters held another of their regular Saturday rallies in Tel Aviv to demand their government reach a deal to free remaining hostages.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 44,211 people, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.
Criticism of Israel has mounted over its conduct of the war, and this week the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
It has also issued a warrant for Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, though it is unclear whether he is still alive.