Israel must avoid conducting military operations in Lebanon like it has in Gaza, the US State Department said Wednesday, while also expressing concern over the humanitarian situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“I’m making very clear that there should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told journalists.
Miller was responding to a question about a video released by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
“You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,”
Netanyahu said. “I say to you, the people of Lebanon: Free your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end.”
Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
The clashes have rapidly escalated this month, with Israel carrying out extensive strikes at both the border and further inside Lebanon, before launching ground operations in the country late last month.
Miller separately said the United States was “particularly concerned” about the humanitarian situation in north Gaza, where the territory’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces have intensified shelling and closed roads, preventing aid delivery.
“We are incredibly concerned about the humanitarian situation in all of Gaza, and particularly concerned about the humanitarian situation in north Gaza, and I can tell you, it has been the subject of some very urgent discussions between our two governments,” he said.
“We have been making clear to the government of Israel that they have an obligation under international humanitarian law to allow food and water and other needed humanitarian assistance to make it into all parts of Gaza,” Miller said.
“We fully expect them to comply with those obligations,” Miller added, while also warning Israel against “conducting operations in Gaza in perpetuity.”
AFP.
