The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question: Meeting on the situation in Lebanon
Tomorrow afternoon (20 September), the Security Council is expected to hold a briefing on “The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question” focused on the situation in Lebanon. Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk are the anticipated briefers.
Algeria called for an urgent meeting following a request from Lebanon after a wave of attacks on 17 and 18 September across Lebanon which detonated thousands of Hezbollah’s electronic communication devices across Lebanon. The 17 September attacks, which set off pager devices, killed 12 people, including two children, and injured over 2,323, while the 18 September attacks, which detonated two-way radios, killed 25 people and injured 608, according to figures provided by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Explosions of communication devices were also reported in Syria, where 14 people were injured, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group with a presence in the country.
While Israel has not taken responsibility for the explosions, the attacks have been widely attributed to Israel, with US radio broadcaster NPR reporting that it has been told by a US official “that Israel informed the US that it was responsible” for the 17 September attack. On 18 September, Lebanese Minister for Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Abdallah Bou Habib, who is travelling to New York to participate in tomorrow’s Security Council briefing, condemned the “Israeli attack”, adding that it “represents a blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and its security”.
The attacks come against the backdrop of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas and near-daily exchanges of fire across the Blue Line between Israel and Hezbollah and other armed groups following the outbreak of the war on 7 October 2023. For background on the situation in Lebanon and the war in Gaza see, respectively, the brief on Lebanon in our August 2024 Monthly Forecast and the brief on “The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question” in our July 2024 Monthly Forecast. (The Blue Line is a withdrawal line set by the UN in 2000 to confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. While not representing an international border, the Blue Line acts in practice as a boundary between Israel and Lebanon in the absence of an agreed-upon border between the two states.)
The exchanges of fire have resulted in casualties among combatants and civilians on both sides of the Blue Line. According to figures cited by the Associated Press on 19 September, over 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes since the start of the escalation, most of them combatants but also more than 100 civilians, while at least 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed in northern Israel by strikes from Lebanese territory. The exchanges of fire have displaced tens of thousands of people both in Israel and Lebanon. At the time of writing, exchanges of fire across the Blue Line were ongoing.
Tomorrow, Council members are likely to seek an update from DiCarlo on the situation in Lebanon and the wider Middle East region following the 17-18 September attacks. In a 17 September statement, Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert deplored the attack that had taken place that day, noting that it marked an “extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context”. During an 18 September press conference, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed that “this event confirms that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon, and everything must be done to avoid that escalation”.
Council members may be interested in DiCarlo’s assessment of the risk of a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah. On 18 September, a division of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) relocated from Gaza to the north of Israel and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that Israel was “opening a new phase in the war” to secure the return of its citizens to the north of Israel. In a 19 September speech, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned that Israel will face retribution “where it expects it and where it does not”. He said that Israel will not be able to return its displaced residents to their homes through military escalation, adding that the “only way” to achieve this “is to halt the aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”. In an 18 September letter to the Security Council, Iran, whose ambassador to Lebanon was injured in the 17 September explosions, said that it would “follow up” on the attack by taking “required measures deemed necessary to respond”. Tomorrow, DiCarlo is likely to call on all relevant actors to avert any further escalation.
In an 18 September statement, Türk said that the effects of the explosions on civilians are “unacceptable”, adding that “[s]imultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law” (IHL). Tomorrow, Türk may elaborate on some of the points made in this statement, including his call for an independent, thorough and transparent investigation into the explosions, and his call for “those who ordered and carried out such an attack” to be held accountable. In a 19 September statement, over 20 UN independent experts also called for accountability and an investigation into the attacks.
Tomorrow, Council members are expected to express concern at the attacks and at the risk of further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah and in the wider region. Many members are expected to stress the need to protect civilians and respect international law, including the IHL principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution. Some may call for an investigation into the attacks.
To varying degrees, some Council members may condemn the 17-18 September attacks and urge Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty. Some members may also condemn Hezbollah’s rocket launches towards northern Israel.
Participants are likely to stress the importance of pursuing diplomatic solutions to the conflict in the region. Council members and the briefers are likely to call on the relevant parties to recommit to, and fully implement, resolution 1701, which in 2006 called for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Members are also likely to refer to the war in Gaza and reiterate their long-standing calls for a ceasefire, for the release of all hostages, and for safe and unhindered humanitarian access. Some may regret the lack of implementation of resolution 2735 of 10 June, which welcomed a three-phase ceasefire proposal announced by US President Joe Biden on 31 May, and might note that a ceasefire in Gaza could reduce tensions along the Blue Line.
Tomorrow, Council members’ remarks are likely to be informed by their sharply divergent views of Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon and by the difficult dynamics that characterise the Security Council’s discussions on the Middle East. Some members distinguish between Hezbollah’s political and military wings and have only designated its military wing as a terrorist organisation; other members, including the UK and the US, have listed Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organisation. On the other hand, Russia sees Hezbollah as a legitimate sociopolitical force in Lebanon.
