Australia, the United States, the European Union and several Arab nations issued a joint call on Wednesday for a “temporary ceasefire” in Lebanon after Israeli strikes on Hezbollah threatened to tip the Middle East into all-out war.
“We, therefore, have worked together in recent days on a joint call for a temporary ceasefire to give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations across the border,” US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron said in a joint statement.
“The statement we have negotiated is now endorsed by the United States, Australia, Canada, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.”
It comes after Israel’s military chief told troops on Wednesday that its heavy airstrikes on Lebanon were preparing the way for a possible ground invasion by Israeli forces.
Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday and Lebanon’s health minister reported at least 51 people were killed and at least 223 wounded in Wednesday’s strikes.
As many as half a million people may have been displaced in Lebanon, its foreign minister said. In Beirut, thousands of people displaced from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.
“You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,” Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi told troops on the border with Lebanon, according to a military statement.
“This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”
On Wednesday, Israel said its warplanes were hitting south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold further north, and that it was calling up two more reserve brigades for operations on Israel’s northern border.
Israel has made a priority of securing its northern border and allowing the return there of some 70,000 residents displaced by near-daily exchanges of fire since war broke out in October between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on Israel’s southern border.
Israel shot down a missile that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement said it had aimed at the headquarters of the Mossad intelligence agency near Israel’s biggest city, Tel Aviv.
World leaders expressed concern that the conflict — running in parallel to Israel’s war in Gaza — was escalating rapidly as the death toll in Lebanon rose past 600 and thousands fled their homes.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who is currently in New York for United Nations talks, said, “Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza”, saying it was the “women and children who are paying the highest price” in the cross-border conflict.
The French president said he was dispatching his foreign minister to Lebanon this week as part of efforts to stop war breaking out.
“There cannot be, must not be war in Lebanon,” Macron said in his speech at the UN on Wednesday.
