UN warns ceasefire violations could spark Lebanon-Israel war

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council is underlining the risk that violations of the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon in the country’s south “could lead to a new conflict that none of the parties or the region can afford.”

Broken windows are seen on the 11-floor building that houses the media office in a stronghold of the Lebanese Hezbollah group in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019. Two Israeli drones crashed in a Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese capital overnight without the militants firing on them, a spokesman for the group said Sunday, saying the first fell on the roof of a building housing Hezbollah’s media office while the second landed in a plot behind it. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

The council warning came in a resolution adopted unanimously Thursday extending the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon until Aug. 31, 2020.

It was approved days after an alleged Israeli drone crashed in a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut and Lebanese army gunners fired at Israeli reconnaissance drones after they entered Lebanese airspace, heightening tensions between the two countries.

The council urged all parties to “exercise maximum calm and restraint and refrain from any action or rhetoric that could jeopardize the cessation of hostilities or destabilize the region.” /gsg