By Maya Gebeily and Ari Rabinovitch
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel’s military chief told troops on Wednesday that its heavy airstrikes on Lebanon were preparing the way for a possible ground operation by Israeli forces against Hezbollah militants while the U.S. and France worked on a temporary ceasefire plan.
As fears rose that the conflict could spark a wider war in the Middle East, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the U.S. and France would give details about their proposal for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon very soon.
“We are counting on both parties to accept it without delay, in order to protect civilian populations and allow for diplomatic negotiations to begin,” Barrot, who was due to travel to the region this week, told a U.N. Security Council meeting.
A U.S. official said a statement was likely later on Wednesday.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters in New York that Israel would welcome a ceasefire and prefers a diplomatic solution in Lebanon. But if diplomacy failed, Israel would use all means at its disposal, he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to arrive in New York on Thursday and address the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, he said.
Also at the U.N., Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said his country supports Hezbollah and would not remain indifferent to a full-scale war in Lebanon. He said the region was on the brink of a full-scale catastrophe.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said all-out war must be avoided at all costs.
“Let us say in one clear voice, stop the killing and destruction. Turn down the rhetoric and threats. Step back from the brink. An all-out war must be avoided at all costs,” Guterres told the Security Council.
Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday and at least 72 people were killed, according to a Reuters compilation of Lebanese health ministry statements. The ministry earlier said at least 223 were wounded.
Israel shot down a missile that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement said it had aimed at the headquarters of the Mossad intelligence agency near Israel’s biggest city, Tel Aviv.
Israeli officials said a heavy missile had headed towards civilian areas in Tel Aviv, not the Mossad HQ, before being shot down.
“You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,” General Herzi Halevi told Israeli troops on the border with Lebanon, according to a military statement.
“This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.” A Pentagon spokesperson said an Israeli ground incursion did not appear imminent.
World leaders expressed concern that the conflict – running in parallel to Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, a Palestinian militant movement backed by Iran – was escalating rapidly as the death toll in Lebanon rose and thousands fled their homes.
“There cannot be, must not be war in Lebanon,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the annual meeting of the 193-member United Nations.
CEASEFIRE PROPOSALS
Three Israeli sources said no significant progress had been made in the French-U.S. effort as yet.
Israeli airstrikes this week have targeted Hezbollah leaders and hit hundreds of sites deep inside Lebanon, where hundreds of thousands have fled the border region, while the group has fired barrages of rockets into Israel.
Mourners thronged a funeral on Wednesday in Beirut’s suburbs for two senior Hezbollah commanders killed in Israeli strikes the day before. Fighters in fatigues carried the flag-covered coffins as a band played. The crowd chanted Hezbollah slogans and some wept.
Israel said its warplanes were hitting south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold further north, and that it was calling up two more reserve brigades for operations on Israel’s northern border.
In a video message that made no comment on diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah was being hit harder than it could ever have imagined.
Israel has made a priority of securing its northern border and allowing the return there of some 70,000 residents displaced by near-daily exchanges of fire since war broke out in October between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on Israel’s southern border.
Lebanese hospitals have filled with the wounded since Monday, when Israeli bombing killed more than 550 people in Lebanon’s deadliest day since its civil war ended in 1990.
Hezbollah said it had aimed the missile at Mossad headquarters “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip … and in defence of Lebanon and its people”.
It blamed the Mossad for assassinations of its leaders.
It also accuses the intelligence agency of booby-trapping Hezbollah members’ pagers and radios that exploded last week, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in those attacks.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a pro-Iranian militant group, said it targeted Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat with drones on Wednesday. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
As many as half a million people may have been displaced in Lebanon, its foreign minister said. In Beirut, thousands of people displaced from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.
(Reporting by Jana Choukeir and Clauda Tanios in Dubai and Joshua McElwee in Vatican City, Kate Holton, Catarina Demony in London, and Urvi Dugar and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Michelle Nichols and John Irish in New York; Writing by Michael Georgy, Kevin Liffey and Cynthia Osterman; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Peter Graff, Timothy Heritage, Howard Goller and Lisa Shumaker)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibilty for its content.