The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, unequivocally condemned this Wednesday the launch of ballistic missiles by Iran on Israel in the early hours of Monday, and He also noted that “they do nothing to support the cause of the Palestinian people or alleviate their suffering.”.
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Guterres’ words before the Security Council, meeting in an emergency today to discuss the situation in Lebanon, are the first he utters after Israel declared him ‘persona non grata’ hours earlier and prohibited his access to the country, precisely for not having unequivocally condemned the Iranian attack the day before, according to the Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz.
Until now, Guterres has not said anything concrete about Israel’s statement about him, nor is he likely to do so..
Guterres began his speech before the Council by lamenting that “the terrifying fire in the Middle East is turning into hell”, and in particular since a week ago, and also before the Council, he already warned against the escalation of violence in the region .
He recalled that the attacks by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and those of the Israeli army violate several UN resolutions, and insisted that the territorial integrity of Lebanon must be respected by Israel, while the Lebanese Government “must have complete control of the weapons in the south of the country”, in reference to Hezbollah’s arsenal.
The Secretary General listed the latest attacks and reprisals that Israel, Hezbollah and Iran have exchanged, and stressed that “each escalation has served as a pretext for the next”.
“We cannot lose sight of the terrible toll that this conflict is taking on civilians, nor can we look the other way in the face of systematic violations of international humanitarian law,” said the secretary general.
“This deadly cycle of give-and-take violence must end. Time is running out,” he warned.
No new resolution on Lebanon is expected to be adopted at the Council sessionsince resolution 1706 of 2006 – violated a thousand times – should be enough, as recalled yesterday by the current president of the Security Council, the Swiss Pascale Baeriswyl.
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