Lebanese Information Minister Fears 'A New Gaza in Lebanon'

Photo: Agence France-Presse A commercial airliner takes off from Beirut International Airport as smoke rises over buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut after an Israeli strike, October 4, 2024

Agence France-Presse in Villers-Cotterêts, France

Published yesterday at 18:14 Updated yesterday at 22:39

• Middle East

“We are afraid of a new Gaza in Lebanon,” said the Lebanese Minister of Information, Ziad Makary, on Friday at the 19th Francophonie summit, who described the constant bombing of Lebanon by Israel as “disgusting.”

“We still think that there is a tiny bit of hope on the diplomatic side because Lebanon is bombed every day. Beirut is bombed every day, every night, for 24 hours. The Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, the South,” declared the minister on the first day of this summit in Villers-Cotterêts, a small town located 60 kilometers north of Paris.

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

“We are counting a lot on France. Much more than on other countries. We are also counting heavily on the Franco-American initiative that was prepared in New York,” also supported by “the European Union, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Great Britain,” he listed.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib revealed this week that Israel and Hezbollah had accepted last week at the UN General Assembly the proposal from Paris and Washington for a 21-day ceasefire between the two belligerents, just before Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the pro-Iranian Shiite militia, in a strike on Beirut.

And Ziad Makary condemned the “criminal attitude” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu.

“He assassinated Ismail Haniyeh [the leader of Hamas] while he was negotiating a ceasefire. And he assassinated Hassan Nasrallah while he was negotiating a ceasefire. So he knew what was going to happen,” which Lebanon finds “unacceptable,” according to him.

“It dragged an entire country and perhaps the entire region into a war that will never end,” he lamented in an interview with AFP.

“As Lebanese, […] how can we live with 2,000 victims, 10,000 wounded and 1,200,000 displaced people in Lebanon in one week?? It’s sickening,” the Minister of Information was further moved, who also described the attitude of the United States as “unacceptable and un-Catholic.”

Washington, which is pushing for a ceasefire, has at the same time validated a new package of US military aid to Israel, worth $8.7 billion, Israeli officials announced last week.

Read also

• New Deadly Israeli Strike on Beirut, After Fighting in Southern Lebanon
• Iran's Allies Will Not “Back Down” in the Face of Israel, Warns Ayatollah Khamenei
• Israel Conducts New Round of Air Raids on Southern Beirut