United Nations: The UN chief warned world leaders on Tuesday that Lebanon was on “the brink” as clashes escalated between Israel and Hezbollah ahead of US President Joe Biden’s final appearance at the global body’s signature annual event.
The gathering of dozens of world leaders, the high point of the diplomatic calendar, comes as Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes killed 558 people - 50 of them children.
“We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
As world leaders gathered in Manhattan for the annual flurry of speeches and face-to-face diplomacy, UN Security Council member France called Monday for an emergency meeting on the crisis engulfing the Middle East.
As the toll in Lebanon climbed, focus shifted away from the situation in Gaza, and the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warned “we are almost in a full-fledged war.”
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, again warned against a full-blown ground invasion of Lebanon, with a senior US official promising to bring “concrete” ideas for de-escalation to the UN this week.
Guterres cautioned against “the possibility of transforming Lebanon (into) another Gaza.”
Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group think tank said he expected many leaders to “warn that the UN will become irrelevant globally if it cannot help make peace.”
More than 100 heads of state and government are scheduled to speak during the UN’s centrepiece event, which will run until Monday.
‘Out-of-control’
Since last year’s annual gathering, when Sudan’s civil war and Russia’s Ukraine invasion dominated, the world has faced an explosion of crises.
“International challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them,” Guterres warned ahead of the gathering.
The October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israel and the ensuing violence in the Middle East has exposed deep divisions in the global body.
With Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expected to address the General Assembly this week, there could be combustible moments.
On Tuesday, representatives of Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Iran and Algeria are slated to take the podium to press for a Gaza ceasefire after nearly one year of war.
Ukraine will also be on the agenda Tuesday when President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a UN Security Council meeting on Russia’s war on Ukraine.
