GENEVA: The United Nations said on Friday it was “appalled” by inflammatory language surrounding the conflict in Lebanon and asked leaders to end their “bellicose posturing”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week urged the Lebanese people to rise up against Hezbollah, or risk a similar fate to Hamas-run Gaza.

“We are appalled by sweeping inflammatory language on multiple sides,” UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva.

“Recent language threatening Lebanese people as a whole and calling on them to either rise up against Hezbollah or face destruction like Gaza, risks being understood as encouraging or accepting violence directed against civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international law.”

She also decried as “unacceptable” the “ongoing denigration of the UN, in particular UNRWA”, the UN agency supporting six million Palestinian refugees spread across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

“This kind of toxic rhetoric, from any source, must stop,” she said.

Israel has long been at odds with the agency and alleged that some of its employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas raids.

Israel has been pounding Hezbollah in Lebanon since Sept 23 in an escalated campaign that has killed more than 1,200 people and displaced more than a million others.

Its ground forces crossed into Lebanon on Sept 30 with the aim of stopping Hezbollah’s cross-border fire in support of Hamas.

“The killing, destruction, as well as bellicose posturing by those in positions of power, must end,” Shamdasani said.

“Widening conflict and progressive escalation put the lives and well-being of potentially millions of people across the region at risk.”

The World Health Organisation said that since Sept 17, it had verified 18 attacks on health care in Lebanon, resulting in 72 deaths and 40 injuries among health staff.

While the WHO records such attacks, it does not attribute blame.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2024