Photo credit: Aljazeera
Antonio Gutteres, the UN Secretary-General, and the Western powers, including the US, Britain, France and Germany have condemned the attack and appealed for calm, as Iran warned Israel that any new military operations in Lebanon could lead to “unforeseen consequences”.
Dawn e-paper reports that on his own part, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has vowed to “hit the enemy hard”. His threat has raised fears that the gaza conflict could spread after a rocket attack on Golan Heights. Israel’s army described it as “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since October 2023 and blamed Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement for firing the rocket. However, the Iran-backed group that has targeted Israeli military positions in the past in response to illegal occupation of the territory and unabated strikes on Palestinians said it had “no connection” with the incident.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Hezbollah will pay a heavy price’ for the attack, “a price it has not paid before”.
Meanwhile, Syria has denounced Israel’s “false accusations” against Hezbollah and said Israel was looking for “pretexts to enlarge its aggression”. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kamani has also warned Israel that “any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region”. He also warned that Israel would then be responsible for “the unforeseen consequences and reactions to such stupid behaviour”.
In a statement, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib 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. He also called for an application of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
