Western powers, UN warn Tel Aviv against escalation

MAJDAL SHAMS: While Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to “hit the enemy hard”, raising fears that the Gaza conflict will spread after a rocket attack on Golan Heights, the European Union as well as Lebanon called for an independent probe into what happened.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Western powers, including the US, Britain France and Germany condemned the attack and appealed for calm, as Iran warned Israel any new military “adventures” in Lebanon could lead to “unforeseen consequences”.

Israel’s army called it “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since October 2023 and blamed Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement for firing the rocket but the Iran-backed group that has targeted Israeli military positions in the past in response to illegal occupation of territory and unabated strikes on Palestinians said it had “no connection” to the latest incident.

The rocket hit Majdal Shams, whose population are Arabic-speaking Druze. Many residents of the Druze town have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.

EU, Lebanon seek independent probe into Golan strike

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned early from the US and went immediately into a security cabinet meeting, said: “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price” for the attack, “a price it has not paid before”. Earlier, Netanyahu had told the US Congress that Israel would do “whatever it must” to secure its northern border.

Blaming Hezbollah for “crossing all red lines”, Israel said it hit Hezbollah targets “both deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon”.

Syria denounced Israel’s “false accusations” against Hezbollah and said Israel was looking for “pretexts to enlarge its aggression”. Also, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani warned Israel “any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region” and Israel would be then responsible for “the unforeseen consequences and reactions to such stupid behaviour”.

In a statement on X, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Sunday called for an “international investigation or a meeting of the tripartite committee held through UNIFIL to know the truth” about who was responsible for the attack and “called for the complete and comprehensive application” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The tripartite committee refers to military officials from Lebanon and Israel along with peacekeepers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

Also, EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the “bloodbath” and said there should be “an independent international investigation into this unacceptable incident.”

The UN urged “maximum restraint”, warning that intensifying exchanges of fire “could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief”.

Britain condemned the attack, as did Germany, whose foreign ministry urged “cool heads”.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2024