Israel says it will keep control over part of southern Lebanon after war with Hezbollah ends
Addressing the UN Security Council from Beirut on Tuesday, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said “the current escalation is compounding a situation that is already critical”.
He said 51 primary healthcare centres and four hospitals had closed due to hostilities, with others damaged or operating at reduced capacities.
“Given the intensity of the coercive displacement that we are seeing, how should we prepare, collectively as the international community, for a new addition to the list of occupied territories?” Fletcher asked the council.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called Israel’s deployment of ground troops in Lebanon an “illegal invasion”, which violates its “integrity and sovereignty”.
“The government of Lebanon has banned Hezbollah, is taking action, is trying to take action against Hezbollah and their terrorist activities and their threats to Israel, and that is the purported justification for this invasion,” Carney said.
A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of 10 European countries, including the UK, France and Italy, as well as EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, urged Israel to avoid widening its military operations in Lebanon and to respect the country’s territorial integrity.
They expressed their “full support to the government and the people of Lebanon, who are once again suffering the dramatic consequences of a war that is not theirs”.
The ministers added that “the responsibility for the situation lies with Hezbollah”, and called for the group to stop its attacks in support of Iran against Israel.
Southern Lebanon is the heartland of Lebanon’s Shia Muslim community, Hezbollah’s main support base. But it is also home to other communities, including Christians.
The latest Israeli ground invasion has already caused widespread alarm among the Lebanese.
Under the ceasefire agreement that ended the war in 2024, Hezbollah was meant to disarm and leave its positions in the south. This was to be supervised by the Lebanese government and army.
Progress was made, but it was partial. Israel also maintained several military posts in the south and continued to carry out regular attacks on what it said were Hezbollah targets.
The will may have been there for the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, but it has always lacked the ability to do so. The prospect of a major confrontation between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah has also long been a major concern, reawakening fears of a descent back into civil war.
Katz previously said that Israel was taking action because the Lebanese government had done “nothing”.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has described the Israeli plans as a “collective punishment against civilians”, and that they could be part of “suspicious schemes” to pursue an expansion of Israel’s presence in Lebanese territory.
