By Wassim Saifuldine
BEIRUT (AA) - Lebanon submitted a formal complaint Thursday to the UN Security Council and Secretary-General António Guterres for Israel’s incursion into its territory and violating the Blue Line separating the two countries.
A statement by Lebanon's permanent mission to the UN, relayed by the country's official news agency, said the complaint condemns Israel’s “aggression against Lebanon's sovereignty and the incursion of its forces within Lebanese borders” since the night of Oct. 1.
Israel launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon, with officials stating it is to establish a security buffer zone that would last several weeks. The Israeli army later announced the death of its first soldier during the ground incursion.
On Thursday, Hezbollah reported repelling six Israeli infiltration attempts in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s mission said Israel violated the 2000 Blue Line and belittled Security Council Resolution 1701 that was adopted in August 2006. It demands a full cessation of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel and the creation of a zone between the Blue Line and the Litani River, free of armed groups except for the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL.
The complaint noted that Israel has amassed military forces, tanks and armored vehicles along Lebanon’s southern border, targeting civilians, aid workers and journalists, while indiscriminately shelling towns and villages with more than 8,570 strikes.
Israel has launched massive airstrikes since Sept. 23 on what it calls Hezbollah targets across Lebanon that have killed so far more than 1,100 victims, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The aerial campaign was an escalation in a year-long conflict between Israel and the Lebanese resistance group since the start of Tel Aviv’s brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 41,800 victims, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.
At least 1,974 victims have since been killed in Lebanon, more than 9,384 injured, with 1.2 million displaced, according to authorities.
The international community has warned that Israeli attacks in Lebanon could escalate the Gaza conflict into a wider regional war.
*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul