The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq issued a joint condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza and Lebanon, calling for international intervention to stop the escalating conflict.
The ministers met on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. They discussed the progress of cooperation within the trilateral framework, in preparation for the upcoming trilateral summit at the leadership level in Cairo.
The ministers addressed the current escalation in the region, stating that halting this escalation must begin with an end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza. They also condemned the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, warning that Israel is pushing the region towards a full-scale war.
“The escalating violence must stop, starting with halting Israeli aggression on Gaza,” the ministers said in a joint statement. “They condemned Israel’s actions in Lebanon, warning it could lead the region into full-scale war.
The ministers urged the global community and the UN Security Council to step in and stop the conflict, stressing Israel’s Responsibility for the dangerous deterioration with severe consequences for the entire region.”
Meanwhile, the situation in Lebanon continues to escalate. Lebanon’s health minister described the situation in his country as “carnage” as hospitals struggle to cope with the number of casualties from two days of widespread Israeli air strikes targeting the armed group Hezbollah.
Firass Abiad told the BBC that it was “clear” that many of the 550 people killed in Monday’s attacks were civilians, including children and women.
Israel claimed it hit hundreds of Hezbollah sites, accusing the group of hiding weapons in residential areas.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military killed the head of Hezbollah’s rocket forces as the strikes continued, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the group was leading Lebanon “to the edge of the abyss”.
Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into Israel early Wednesday, including a longer-range projectile that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. It was the group’s farthest strike yet. Israel said it intercepted the projectile, and there were no reports of casualties or damage.
Despite Israeli attacks, Hezbollah’s adaptable command structure, combined with its vast tunnel infrastructure and a significant stockpile of missiles and arms accumulated over the past year, is enabling the Resistance group to endure unprecedented Israeli attacks, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing three sources familiar with Hezbollah’s operations.
The Israeli occupation assassinated in the past weeks two of Hezbollah’s top military commanders, Sayyed Fouad Shokor and Ibrahim Aqil, in addition to the chief of its missile unit on Tuesday, Ibrahim Kobeissi, along with other leaders and fighters.
Furthermore, “Israel” launched a mass and unprecedented attack last week, detonating thousands of pagers and two-way radios, resulting in the killing of tens of citizens and the wounding of over 3,000 others.
Although neither side seemed interested in backing down, US President Joe Biden told the UN General Assembly that a full-scale conflict was “not in anyone’s interest” and insisted that a “diplomatic solution is still possible”.
UN Secretary General António Guterres warned that the world “cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza”.
An Israeli air raid on a Lebanese village near the coastal town of Byblos targeted the home of a deceased Hezbollah fighter, killing six members of his family, including his two children between five and six years old, local officials told AP.
The strike on Wednesday morning levelled the two-story building in Maisara, where people displaced from the south have sought shelter.
Zuheir Amro, a local official, said the owner of the house, Ali Amr, was a Hezbollah fighter killed on the frontline in south Lebanon 50 days earlier. The building attacked Wednesday was his family home.
Also on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said that Israel’s ongoing aerial bombardment in Lebanon has put civilians “across the country at grave risk,” and called for a United Nations investigation into strikes in Lebanon and rocket fire by Hezbollah into northern Israel.
The global rights group documented over a thousand Israeli strikes across Lebanon since the Israeli military announced a new phase in its conflict with Hezbollah.
