Shafaqna Pakistan: An emergency session of the United Nations Security Council was scheduled to discuss the war in Lebanon, as Israel intensified its bombardment and advanced its deepest military push into Lebanese territory in two decades on Monday.
Ahead of the meeting, US President Donald Trump posted on social media that he had helped broker efforts to de-escalate between the sides, just hours after Israel issued threats of renewed strikes on Beirut’s heavily populated southern suburbs.
The development came a day before Lebanon and Israel were expected to begin a fourth round of US-facilitated direct talks on Tuesday, following security-level discussions held by military delegations last week.
In a post on his Truth Social platform after what he described as a “very productive” conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said, “There will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.”
He further claimed that through high-level intermediaries he had spoken with Hezbollah, which, according to him, agreed to halt all hostilities, while Israel would also refrain from launching attacks, effectively bringing a mutual stop to the fighting.
Earlier on Monday, Tehran — engaged in stalled negotiations for an end to its wider war with the Washington — said a Lebanon ceasefire remained a key condition for any deal, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened to open “new fronts” over Israel’s offensive in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli airstrikes on more than 40 locations in the country’s south on Monday, including one that damaged a hospital in the city of Tyre.
An AFP correspondent saw heavy damage in the area and first responders putting out a blaze at the Jabal Amel hospital’s car park which had been hit.
The health ministry shared videos showing damage inside a hospital ward, with rubble and debris on the ground, blown-out ceilings, blood on the floor and shattered glass.
‘NO CALM IN BEIRUT’
Hezbollah claimed a series of attacks on Israeli troops who have invaded southern Lebanon and on targets across the border on Monday.
Before Trump’s statement, a source close to Hezbollah told AFP on condition of anonymity that the group had “not committed to stop attacking” northern Israel.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that “we are deeply alarmed by the escalation in military activities across southern Lebanon and beyond,” urging all sides “to respect the cessation of hostilities and avoid further escalation”.
Earlier on Monday, Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Israel Katz said they had ordered strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs “in light of the repeated violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon by the terrorist organisation Hezbollah and the attacks on our cities and citizens”.
Israel’s military later urged residents of the area, a Hezbollah stronghold mostly spared heavy attacks since April, to evacuate.
It also issued evacuation warnings for more than a dozen south Lebanon locations.
Katz said separately there would be “no calm in Beirut” if Hezbollah attacks continued, vowing to establish a military-controlled zone in the area of southern Lebanon’s Litani River.
AFP journalists saw hundreds of families fleeing the usually densely populated southern suburbs, some on foot or on motorbikes, others in cars packed with belongings. A correspondent later said streets there were largely deserted.
Source: Dunya News
