UN Chief Warns: Lebanon Cannot Become Another Gaza

 Smoke billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 19, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
Smoke billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 19, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
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UN Chief Warns: Lebanon Cannot Become Another Gaza

 Smoke billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 19, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
Smoke billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 19, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday he is profoundly concerned by escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah and that UN peacekeepers are working to calm the situation and prevent miscalculation.

"One rash move - one miscalculation - could trigger a catastrophe that goes far beyond the border, and frankly, beyond imagination," he told reporters. "Let's be clear: The people of the region and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza."

Iran-backed Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas since the Gaza war erupted in October, forcing tens of thousands to flee homes in Israel, where political pressure is building for tougher action.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese have also fled their homes following Israeli strikes in south Lebanon.

Iran's mission to the United Nations said on Friday that Hezbollah has the capability to defend itself and Lebanon against Israel, warning that "perhaps the time for the self-annihilation of this illegitimate regime has come."

"Any imprudent decision by the occupying Israeli regime to save itself could plunge the region into a new war," Iran's UN mission posted on X.

The United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers, as well as unarmed technical observers known as UNTSO, have long been stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel, known as the Blue Line.

"UN peacekeepers are on the ground working to de-escalate tensions and help prevent miscalculation," Guterres said.

"The world must say loudly and clearly: immediate de-escalation is not only possible – it is essential," he said. "There is no military solution." 



Israel Kills More Palestinians in Gaza

A Palestinian man reads one of the leaflets dropped by the Israeli army ordering the residents to leave, in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on March 19, 2025. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP)
A Palestinian man reads one of the leaflets dropped by the Israeli army ordering the residents to leave, in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on March 19, 2025. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP)
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Israel Kills More Palestinians in Gaza

A Palestinian man reads one of the leaflets dropped by the Israeli army ordering the residents to leave, in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on March 19, 2025. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP)
A Palestinian man reads one of the leaflets dropped by the Israeli army ordering the residents to leave, in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on March 19, 2025. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP)

Israeli strikes killed at least five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, health officials in the enclave said, and the Israeli army, which resumed attacks against the territory, said it targeted a Hamas military site in the north.

Three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Sabra suburb in Gaza City, while another airstrike left two men dead and wounded six others in Beit Hanoun town in the north, the Gaza health officials said, according to Reuters.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas site in northern Gaza, where they detected preparations for firing into Israeli territory. Israel resumed airstrikes a day earlier as both sides traded blame over breaking a ceasefire and shattering nearly two months of relative calm.

Israeli naval vessels attacked several boats it said were intended to carry out "terrorist" acts by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups. Palestinians said an Israeli drone fired at several fishing boats onshore of Gaza City, setting several of them ablaze.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army dropped leaflets on areas in Beit Hanoun and Khan Younis in the northern and southern Gaza Strip, ordering residents to evacuate their homes warning them they were in "dangerous combat zones."

"Staying in the shelters or the current tent put your lives and that of your family members in danger, evacuate immediately," read a leaflet dropped on Beit Hanoun.

Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday left more than 400 people dead, according to Palestinian health authorities, and Israel warned the onslaught was "just the beginning."
Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching the truce, which had broadly held since January and offered respite for the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza, which has been reduced to rubble.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered strikes because Hamas had rejected proposals to secure a ceasefire extension.

Hamas, which still holds 59 of about 250 hostages Israel says the group seized in its October 7, 2023 cross-border attack, accused Israel of jeopardizing efforts by mediators to negotiate a permanent deal to end the fighting.

Hamas officials said they remained keen on concluding the three-phase ceasefire deal as signed.