The United Nations has issued an urgent plea for calm and respect for the agreed ceasefire after Israel pushed its offensive into Lebanon, a move that puts fragile US-Iran peace talks on the brink of collapse.
“We are deeply alarmed by the escalation in military activities across southern Lebanon and beyond,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said. “We urge all actors to respect the cessation of hostilities and avoid further escalation.”
The UN call came amid Israeli government ordered strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, a day after its ground forces reached their furthest point in Lebanon in 26 years and as Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, including the outskirts of the coastal city of Haifa.
A source close to Hezbollah confirmed to AFP news agency that the Iran-backed group would not stop targeting northern Israel. Hezbollah “has not committed to stop attacking” northern Israel, the source reiterated, requesting anonymity and added: “Why stop these attacks that hurt Israel while it is bombarding Lebanon?”
Israel also continued to threaten to bomb Beirut’s southern suburbs if the militants kept up attacks, causing further escalation.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “if there is no calm in the north, there will be no calm in Beirut,” while a senior US official told AFP on Sunday that Washington had “proposed a clear sequence: Hezbollah must stop all attacks on Israel. In return, Israel would refrain from escalation in Beirut.”
Iran prepares to activate other fronts
Meanwhile, on the same day, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened to open “new fronts” and keep the Strait of Hormuz closed over Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, state media reported.
“Iran considers crossing the red lines in Lebanon and Gaza to mean direct war,” state TV quoted the Guards’ intelligence organisation. “In return, it is determined to carry out defensive operations by taking meaningful actions and opening new fronts, in addition to preserving the Strait of Hormuz equation.”
On Monday evening, Mohsen Rezaee, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, posted on X that “the escalation of tensions in Lebanon will not be tolerated,” and added that “the patience of the armed forces of Iran has a limit.”
The Tasnim news agency earlier reported that Iran and its allies would “activate other fronts, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait” at the entrance of the Red Sea, in response to Israel’s military actions.
Iran’s Yemeni ally, the Houthis, have previously attacked shipping in the strait and nearby waters, forcing ships to take long detours around Africa rather than sail through the Red Sea and Suez Canal.
The Red Sea is also home to the Saudi port of Yanbu, through which Riyadh has exported millions of barrels of oil, bypassing Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf.
A Lebanese hospital is struck
The escalation continues to take its toll on Lebanon, as an Israeli airstrike heavily damaged the Jabal Amel Hospital in the port city of Tyre on Monday afternoon, shattering windows and blowing out facades. Footage released by the Lebanese Health Ministry showed panicked women and children inside the debris-strewn facility.
The attack follows a wave of overnight bombardments across southern Lebanon that killed 6 people, according to the state-run National News Agency.
Hezbollah also carried out rocket and missile attacks on northern Israel on Sunday as the group confirmed early Monday it attacked Israeli troops in Zawtar al-Sharqieh, just north of the Litani River, and struck what they said was Israeli military infrastructure in Tiberius, a few dozen miles south of the border.
Both sides blame each other for the escalation
Hezbollah agreed to halt attacks on Israel when the ceasefire was signed in mid-April, but the militant group resumed the assaults after Israeli strikes in Lebanon that Israel characterised as self-defence.
This escalation of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has become one of the major obstacles in front of the deal efforts between the US and Iran to extend the ceasefire in the Iran war, as Tehran wants any agreement to include Lebanon.