Follow the latest news on the war in Gaza live
September 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday called for civilian objects to “not be turned into weapons” following an attack on thousands of pager devices belonging to the Lebanese militia-party Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.
“I think it is very important that there is effective control over civilian objects, not turning them into weapons. That should be a rule that governments around the world should be able to implement,” he said during a press conference in New York.
The Secretary General has stated that “the logic of detonating all these devices” is “to do it as a preventive attack before a major military operation”, so this incident, attributed to Israel, shows that there is a “serious risk” of regional escalation.
In this regard, Guterres expressed his “deep alarm” in a statement about the situation in the region and called on the parties involved to “exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation” in the Middle East.
The UN Secretary-General has called on the parties to commit to implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and to “immediately return to a cessation of hostilities to restore stability” in the region.
“The United Nations supports all diplomatic and political efforts to end the violence, which threatens to engulf the region,” said spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, in a statement.
Lebanese health authorities have confirmed that at least nine people have died and another 300 have been injured after new explosions of communication devices were reported, as happened the day before with hundreds of ‘searchers’ of the Shiite party-militia Hezbollah.
According to images posted on social media, the devices that exploded were walkie-talkies. The day before, the explosion of hundreds of pagers in the hands of suspected Hezbollah members left at least twelve dead and around 2,800 injured.
Add Comment