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EU’s Borrell warns of 'full-blown war’, says situation in West Asia at ‘critical level’

Monday, 26 August 2024 8:06 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 26 August 2024 8:55 AM ]

A drone operated by Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement flies over north of the Israeli-occupied territories on August 25, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has warned that the current “critical” situation in West Asia risks turning into a “full-blown war” amid renewed tensions between Lebanon and Israel.

He made the remarks in an X post on Sunday, after Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement avenged the July 30 assassination of its senior commander Fuad Shukr by conducting a massive rocket drone attack against 11 military installations in the occupied territories.

Meanwhile, Israel claimed that it had waged a preemptive assault. Hezbollah, however, rejected the allegation, saying the regime had only carried out an air raid that failed to destroy the resistance group’s rocket launchers.

“The situation in the Middle East has reached a critical level of dangerosity, for the region and beyond,” Borrell said.

He added that he supports Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s call for “the immediate application of UNSCR 1701, in addition to the much-needed ceasefire in Gaza, to conjure the risk of a full blown war.”

UNSCR 1701 refers to a resolution that ended Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon and called for Israeli forces to withdraw behind the UN Blue Line, the de-facto border between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In an emergency meeting of his cabinet on Sunday, Mikati said that “what is required is first to stop the Israeli aggression, and then to implement Resolution 1701.”

He also emphasized Beirut’s "support for international efforts that could lead to a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging deadly fire since early October, shortly after the regime launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a surprise operation by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group.

‘Mission accomplished’: Hezbollah fires barrages of rockets, drones against Israeli targets

Hezbollah fires barrages of rockets and drones towards the northern part of the occupied Palestinian territories in response to Israel’s assassination of a senior military commander of the resistance group.

In a televised speech on Sunday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group’s latest operation had been completed “as planned” and caused “great disruptions” inside the occupied lands, noting, “We achieved and surpassed our objectives.”

The main target of the operation was the Glilot base, just north of Tel Aviv, which houses the Israeli Mossad spy agency and military intelligence agencies such as the Unit 8200.

Hezbollah has vowed to keep up its retaliatory attacks as long as the usurping regime continues its brutal Gaza onslaught, which has so far killed at least 40,405 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 93,468 others.

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