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Iran Says it Won't Remain Indifferent in Case of Full-Scale War in Lebanon

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Kfar Rouman, seen from Marjayoun, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Kfar Rouman, seen from Marjayoun, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
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Iran Says it Won't Remain Indifferent in Case of Full-Scale War in Lebanon

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Kfar Rouman, seen from Marjayoun, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Kfar Rouman, seen from Marjayoun, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday the region is on the brink of a full-scale catastrophe due to escalating tensions between Israel and Hamas and warned that Tehran would not remain indifferent in case of war in Lebanon.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Araqchi said Israel had crossed "all red lines" and that the UN Security Council must intervene to restore peace and stability.
Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday and at least 72 people were killed, according to a Reuters compilation of Lebanese health ministry statements. The ministry earlier said at least 223 were wounded.
Israel's military chief said a ground assault was possible, raising fears the conflict could spark a wider Middle East war.
A senior White House official said that over the last several months, Washington has been engaging with officials in Israel and Lebanon to reduce hostilities.
As many as half a million people may have been displaced in Lebanon, its foreign minister said. In Beirut, thousands of people displaced from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.
Israeli airstrikes this week have targeted Hezbollah leaders and hit hundreds of sites deep inside Lebanon, where hundreds of thousands have fled the border region, while the group has fired barrages of rockets into Israel.
Israel said its warplanes were hitting south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold further north, and that it was calling up two more reserve brigades for operations on Israel's northern border.
Israel has made a priority of securing its northern border and allowing the return there of some 70,000 residents displaced by near-daily exchanges of fire since war broke out in October between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on Israel's southern border.
Lebanese hospitals have been filled with the wounded since Monday, when Israeli bombing killed more than 550 people in Lebanon's deadliest day since its civil war ended in 1990.

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UN Refugee Agency Says 25% of Lebanon under Israeli Evacuation Orders

This picture shows debris and rubble at the site of a previous Israeli air strike on the village of Aito in northern Lebanon on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
This picture shows debris and rubble at the site of a previous Israeli air strike on the village of Aito in northern Lebanon on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
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UN Refugee Agency Says 25% of Lebanon under Israeli Evacuation Orders

This picture shows debris and rubble at the site of a previous Israeli air strike on the village of Aito in northern Lebanon on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
This picture shows debris and rubble at the site of a previous Israeli air strike on the village of Aito in northern Lebanon on October 15, 2024. (AFP)

Israel, which began incursions into south Lebanon two weeks ago to battle Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, has issued military evacuation orders affecting more than a quarter of the country, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.

The figures underscore the heavy price Lebanese are paying as Israel steps up its campaign to defeat Hezbollah and destroy its infrastructure in their one-year conflict.

The UN refugee agency's Middle East Director Rema Jamous Imseis told a press briefing in Geneva that new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that over a quarter of the country was now affected. "People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they're fleeing with almost nothing."

Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,309 people over the last year, the Lebanese government said, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced.

The majority have been killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Around 50 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed, according to Israel.

Israel says its operation in Lebanon aims to secure the return of tens of thousands of its residents forced to flee their homes in northern Israel due to Hezbollah attacks.

Israel expanded its bombing campaign in Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 22 people - most of them women - in an airstrike in the north on a house where displaced people were seeking refuge from Israeli strikes further south, health officials said.

"What we are hearing is that amongst the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children," UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told the same press briefing in response to a question about Monday's strike on Christian-majority Aito.

"We understand it was a four-story residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL (International Humanitarian Law), so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality," he said, calling for an investigation into the incident.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble in Aito on Tuesday, local media reported, following one of the deadliest strikes on displaced families in Lebanon, after strikes earlier this month on the southern Lebanese town of Ain Deleb that left more than 30 dead.

Israel has not commented on the Aito strike, but has repeatedly said it takes all possible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

UN CONCERNED OVER PEACEKEEPER ATTACKS

So far the main focus of Israel's military operations in Lebanon has been in the Bekaa Valley in the east, the suburbs of Beirut, and in the south, where UN peacekeepers have said that Israeli fire has hit their bases on numerous occasions and wounded peacekeepers.

The UN Security Council on Monday expressed strong concern after several peacekeeping positions in southern Lebanon again came under fire amid clashes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting a military base in central Israel where four soldiers were killed on Sunday by a Hezbollah drone strike, said Israel would continue to attack the movement "without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon – including Beirut".  

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah resumed a year ago when the group began firing rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war.

Meanwhile, the Middle East remains on high alert for Israel to retaliate against Iran for an Oct. 1 barrage of missiles launched in response to Israel's assaults on Lebanon.

Netanyahu's office said Israel would listen to the United States but would decide its actions according to its own national interest.

The statement was attached to a Washington Post article which said Netanyahu had told President Joe Biden's administration that Israel would strike Iranian military, not nuclear or oil, targets - suggesting a more limited counterstrike aimed at preventing a full-scale war.

Qatar's emir accused Israel on Tuesday of exploiting "international inaction" on the Middle East crisis to move beyond its "aggression" in Gaza to build more illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and send troops into Lebanon.

"Israel deliberately chose to expand the aggression to implement pre-planned schemes in other locations such as the West Bank and Lebanon because it sees that the scope for that is available," Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said in his annual speech to open Qatar's Shura Council.

Qatar, the United States and Egypt have repeatedly mediated in an attempt to end the war in Gaza, which broke out a year ago when fighters from the Palestinian group Hamas burst into Israel from Gaza and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 42,000 people in Gaza, turned the enclave into piles of cement and twisted metal and created severe shortages of food, water and fuel.