“We are deeply concerned regarding any possible escalation that might have devastating consequences for people on both sides,” said UNIFIL Deputy Spokesperson Kandice Ardiel.
“We continue to ask all parties to cease fire and all influential speakers to refrain,” she added.
Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a strike in a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, two Lebanese security officials told AFP, blaming Israel.
Hamas, which has been at war with Israel for almost three months in the Gaza Strip, confirmed that S. al. Arouri was killed along with six others in an Israeli drone strike.
Hamas said that S. al. Arouri will be buried on Thursday in Beirut’s Shatila Palestinian refugee camp.
Since October 7, when the war between Israel and Hamas began, Hezbollah and the Jewish state have exchanged fire on the border almost daily.
According to the AFP news agency, more than 160 people have been killed on the Lebanese side since the start of hostilities, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but more than 20 civilians, including three journalists, have been killed.
According to Israeli authorities, at least five civilians and nine soldiers were killed on its side.
S. al. Arouri, one of Hamas’s key military strategists, was the first high-ranking official of the Islamist militant movement to be killed in the war.
In addition, it was the first strike in the Lebanese capital since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel.
Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, warned that the killing “will not go unanswered and unpunished”.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, is scheduled to give a televised speech on Wednesday.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari did not directly comment on the killing, but later said the military was “on very high alert in all areas, defensive and offensive.”
Several exiled Hamas leaders have found refuge in Lebanon, where they are protected by their ally Hezbollah.
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2024-07-11 02:29:46
