UN says Israeli threats of Gaza-like fate for Lebanon “unacceptable”

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights described statements by a far-right Israeli minister as “unacceptable” after he threatened earlier this month that could face the same fate as the Gaza Strip.

 

Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, the office’s spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said: “Statements by Israeli officials threatening to impose the same level of destruction on Lebanon as in Gaza are completely unacceptable.”

On March 5, Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened the southern suburbs of Beirut with the same destruction that Israel has inflicted on Gaza since the start of the war against Hamas.

Smotrich wrote on Telegram: “Very soon, Beirut’s southern suburbs will resemble Khan Younis,” referring to the large city in southern Gaza that has been heavily destroyed during the war.

The U.N. human rights office spokesperson also said that in many cases Israeli airstrikes have destroyed entire residential buildings in densely populated urban areas, often killing multiple members of the same family, including women and children.

Al-Kheetan added that such attacks raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law, noting that people displaced by the fighting and living in tents along Beirut’s seafront have also been affected.