(Washington) The United States warned Israel on Tuesday that a war against Lebanese Hezbollah could provoke a regional conflict, after an escalation of cross-border firefights and bellicose rhetoric between the protagonists in recent weeks.
On Israel’s southern front, in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army continued its bombings on the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly nine months of war, with UN agencies expressing concern over the major humanitarian crisis with half a million Palestinians suffering from hunger at “catastrophic” levels.
The war in Gaza, sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, has led to daily violence on the Israeli-Lebanese border between Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement, and the Israeli army.
“A war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with disastrous consequences for the Middle East,” warned US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin while receiving his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon.
“Diplomacy is by far the best way to avoid further escalation,” he added.
Gallant said “we are working closely to reach an agreement, but we also need to prepare for all possible scenarios.”
Visiting Beirut, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that a “miscalculation” could provoke a full-scale war between Hezbollah and Israel at any time.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah claimed three attacks on military positions in northern Israel, in retaliation for an Israeli raid Monday on its positions in the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon.
Last week, the leader of the Lebanese movement that wields major influence in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, warned that “no place” in Israel would be spared from his movement’s missiles, after the Israeli army announced that ” operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” had been “validated.”
Hezbollah opened the front with Israel in support of Hamas the day after the Palestinian movement’s October 7 attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally by the AFP established from official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 116 are still being held in Gaza, 42 of whom are dead, according to the army.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a major offensive against Gaza that has so far left 37,658 people dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
By announcing that the “intense” phase of the fighting was coming to an end in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu made particular reference to the town of Rafah (south) where the army launched a ground offensive on May 7.
He repeated that “the objective” was “to recover the hostages” and to “uproot the Hamas regime”, in place since 2007 in Gaza and considered terrorist by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
On Tuesday, Hamas announced that the sister of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, as well as nine other members of her family, had been killed in an Israeli strike on the Chati refugee camp in Gaza City (north). The military has not confirmed.
“If the criminal enemy thinks that targeting my family will make us change our position and affect our resistance then he is deluding himself,” responded Mr. Haniyeh, who lives in exile in Qatar.
According to witnesses, an Israeli strike also left five dead, including two children, near al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City.
In the 9th month of the war, the Israeli army maintains a siege on some 2.4 million people in the small Palestinian territory, where there is a “high and sustained risk” of famine according to a report by the Integrated Classification Framework of the food security (IPC), on which UN agencies base themselves.
The report said 495,000 people remained hungry at “catastrophic” levels in the Gaza Strip, while noting a slight improvement in the humanitarian situation in the territory’s north.
According to the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, “basically, every day we have 10 children who lose one or two legs on average (in Gaza). Ten a day means about 2,000 children after more than 260 days of this brutal war.”
