UPDATE - Lebanon's premier holds contacts with allies to halt Israeli escalation

UPDATES WITH DETAILS, REVISES HEADLINE, DECK, ADDS CHANGES
By Stephanie Rady
BEIRUT (AA) – Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Sunday he held regional and international contacts with the country’s allies to halt Israel’s military escalation amid cross-border attacks with Hezbollah.
This came during an emergency ministerial meeting held early Sunday following a spate of Israeli airstrikes in several towns in southern Lebanon.
A cabinet statement said the meeting took up the situation in the south and the provision of emergency services in the targeted areas.
It added that the emergency meeting reviewed contacts held by the Lebanese authorities with its civil society partner organizations in implementing its emergency plan.
During the meeting, Mikati said he held a series of contacts with Lebanon's allies “to de-escalate the situation.”
"The primary requirement is to halt the Israeli aggression, followed by the implementation of UN Resolution 1701,” he added.
On August 11, 2006, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1701, which called for a complete halt to hostilities between Lebanon and Israel and the establishment of a zone free of armed personnel and weapons between the Blue Line and the Litani River in southern Lebanon, except for the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL.
Mikati reiterated Lebanon's “support for international efforts that could lead to a cease-fire in Gaza."
Israeli warplanes launched over 40 airstrikes on southern Lebanon early Sunday, the most severe attack since cross-border attacks with Hezbollah began on Oct. 8, 2023. The Israeli army claimed that the strikes aimed to prevent an impending Hezbollah attack.
The Lebanese group, for its part, said it launched hundreds of missiles and drones deep into Israel in the “first phase” of its response to last month’s assassination of its commander Fouad Shukr in Beirut.
Since October 8, 2023, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been engaged in daily exchanges of fire with the Israeli army across the Blue Line, resulting in hundreds of casualties, mostly on the Lebanese side.
The escalation comes against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 40,300 Palestinians since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas incursion. The military campaign has reduced much of the territory to rubble and left most of the people homeless, hungry and prone to disease.
* Writing by Ikram Kouachi