Israel and Lebanon: UN High Commissioner warns of further Middle East war
Published: Tuesday, Jun 18th 2024, 15:20
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UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk warns of another major conflict in the Middle East. "I am extremely concerned about the escalating situation between Lebanon and Israel," the High Commissioner told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.
Türk called for the fighting to stop and for everything to be done "to avert a full-scale war".
Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip more than eight months ago, there have been daily military confrontations between the Israeli army and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon as well as other groups in the border area between the countries. According to Türk, 401 people have already been killed in Lebanon and 25 people in Israel. Tens of thousands of people on both sides have had to leave their homes and apartments because of the conflict.
At the start of the Human Rights Council's summer session, which will last several weeks, Türk also lamented the total of more than 120,000 injured and dead in the Gaza war and the worldwide increase in armed violence.
Dramatic increase in civilian casualties of war
According to the UN Human Rights Office, the global number of civilian deaths in armed conflicts rose by 72 percent last year to more than 33,400. The conflict in the Gaza Strip played a major role in this, it said. This figure is based on documented and verified deaths. Türk's office assumes that even more civilians were killed worldwide.
"We urgently need to find the way back to peace," Türk demanded. He pointed out that states had increased their military spending last year by 6.8 percent to almost 2.5 trillion dollars (2.3 trillion euros). On the other hand, there is currently a 40.8 billion dollar gap in the UN budget for humanitarian aid, criticized the Austrian UN diplomat.
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