Fears of a deepening war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon are growing this week. Visiting Washington in recent days, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant threatened Hezbollah, a pro-Palestinian Islamist movement allied with Hamas, to “reduce Lebanon to the Stone Age” in the event of a conflict, while specifying that this was not the will of Israel. Internationally, voices are increasing against a “potentially apocalyptic extension” of the war in Gaza with “unforeseeable” consequences, to use the words of the UN.
Information to remember
⇒ Israel threatens to “return Lebanon to the Stone Age” in the event of war
⇒ The UN worries about a “potentially apocalyptic” extension of the conflict
⇒ In Gaza, the water crisis becomes more violent in the middle of summer
Israel threatens to return Lebanon to the ‘Stone Age’
“Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict enormous damage on Lebanon if a war is launched,” Minister Yoav Gallant told the press after a several-day visit to Washington. “We have the capacity to return Lebanon to the Stone Age, but we do not want to do it […] We do not want a war,” he added, specifying that the Israeli government was “preparing for any scenario”.
But “a war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with disastrous consequences for the Middle East”, worried the American Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, receiving Yoav Gallant in Washington, while voices are increasing internationally against the deepening of the conflict on this second front.
Fears of an “apocalyptic spread” of the conflict
The spread of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to Lebanon would indeed be “potentially apocalyptic”, according to the head of UN humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths. “I see this as the spark that will ignite the powder,” he underlined Tuesday from Geneva, estimating that a conflict involving Lebanon “will win Syria… will win the other” territories of the region, leading to “unforeseeable” consequences.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that the “intense” phase of fighting was coming to an end in the Gaza Strip and affirmed that Israel could then “redeploy certain forces towards the north”, on the border with Lebanon, “for defensive purposes”.
“It seems that Israel, which devastated Gaza, is now setting its sights on Lebanon. We see that Western powers support Israel behind the scenes,” declared Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Netanyahu’s plans to expand the war to the region will lead to great disaster,” he added.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned last week that “no place” in Israel would be spared by his movement, the day after an announcement by the Israeli army that “operational plans for a offensive in Lebanon” had been “validated”.
Numerous Israeli airstrikes in the region
During the night of Wednesday to Thursday, June 27, witnesses reported bombings in different sectors of the Gaza Strip, while in Lebanon, five people were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a building in Nabatiyeh (south). , according to the official Lebanese agency Ani.
In Syria, two people were killed in an Israeli strike shortly before midnight, the official Sana agency announced, citing a military source. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), the strike targeted a service center of a foundation affiliated with Lebanese Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups, near the capital Damascus.
And in Yemen, the US Army Middle East Command said it had destroyed a “radar” of the Houthi rebels, allies of Hamas, who target international maritime traffic in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in ” solidarity” with the people of Gaza.
Gaza water crisis
The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the territory of 2.4 million people besieged by Israel, where 495,000 people are suffering from hunger at “catastrophic” levels, according to a report released Tuesday by the Integrated Human Rights Classification Framework. food security (IPC), on which UN agencies base themselves. Water is also lacking in the middle of summer in the overpopulated area, where residents rush with cans when a truck loaded with tanks arrives.
The opening of a maritime corridor from Cyprus in March allowed 7,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to be sent to Gaza, of which 6,000 tonnes remain in storage due to looting and violence preventing their distribution, said Wednesday American officials meeting in Cyprus. “I have never seen such a difficult or complex environment” for humanitarians, said Doug Stropes of USAID, the US development agency.