Amid growing fears of a wider war, the UN Security Council held an emergency session on Friday after Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital Beirut and in the south left at least a dozen dead and more than 60 injured. The meeting came amid an upsurge in cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces and two days of terrorist attacks in Lebanon that used deadly explosions from wireless devices, killing at least 37 people and maiming or injuring more than 3,400.
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that some 1,500 people are still hospitalized from this week's horrific mobile phone attacks, which were allegedly targeting the armed group Hezbollah but killed civilians, including children. The attacks have left many with permanent disabilities, and health facilities are struggling to cope with the scale of the impact on people. Medical teams and hospitals are reportedly working around the clock to help the wounded.
âWe are very concerned at the heightened escalation across the Blue Line, including the deadly strike we saw on Beirut today. We urge all parties to de-escalate immediately. All must exercise maximum restraint,â UN spokesman StĂ©phane Dujarric told journalists Friday before the Council meeting started.
âThe region is on the brink of a catastrophe. All efforts should focus on finding a diplomatic solution,â he said. âOur Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeannine Hennis-Plasschaert, has been insistently conveying these messages to her interlocutors in Lebanon and Israel. â
Hennis-Plasschaert consulted with Lebanese and Israeli actors, as well as other regional stakeholders, urging all to refrain from further actions or bellicose rhetoric that could spark a wider conflagration.
She also met with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib ahead of the Security Council meeting. Both stressed that diplomatic channels are the only way to restore calm and stability.
The Blue Line is a demarcation line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Golan Heights, and is the subject of an ongoing border dispute between Israel, Lebanon and the Hezbollah movement.
Following the weeks-long war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006, which caused widespread destruction throughout Lebanon, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1701. In it, the Council established a buffer zone between the Blue Line in southern Lebanon and the Litani River in Israel.
Among other things, Resolution 1701 called on both Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent cease-fire and a comprehensive solution to the crisis.
On Friday afternoon, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker TĂŒrk, briefed the Security Council in an emergency meeting on developments in Lebanon.
Volker TĂŒrk told the 15-member Council he was "appalled by the breadth and impact" of the attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies across Lebanon.
"These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons," he said, noting that unexploded devices had been made dismantled in universities, banks and hospitals.
TĂŒrk said the attacks had caused widespread fear, panic and horror among the people of Lebanon, already suffering from an increasingly unstable situation since October 2023 and crumbling under a severe and long-standing economic crisis.
"This cannot be the new normal," the UN human rights chief added, noting that "war has rules for each and any party to this - and any other armed conflict."
âSimultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location, and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, as applicable, international humanitarian law.â
Also briefing the Council, Rosemary DiCarlo said âalarming developmentsâ in Lebanon and the region have come after nearly one year of hostilities âon an almost daily basisâ across the Blue Line.
âThe exchanges of fire have caused numerous casualties, including among civilians, and significant damage to homes, civilian infrastructure, and agricultural land on both sides of the Blue Line,â she said.
âThe risk of further expansion of this cycle of violence is extremely serious and poses a grave threat to the stability of Lebanon, Israel, and the whole region.â
The Lebanese government strongly condemned the attack, which it blamed on Israel. Caretaker Prime Minister Mikati said the attacks were "a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime."
To date, the Israeli government has made no official comment on the use of wireless devices in the attacks.
Meanwhile, on the peacekeeping front, the blue helmets of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) continue to carry out their mandate under extremely difficult conditions, working to prevent further escalation and return to a cessation of hostilities.
According to UN spokesman Dujarric, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission, Aroldo LĂĄzaro, has been in constant contact with the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Israeli Defense Forces to help avoid any miscalculation along the Blue Line and to support humanitarian access in southern Lebanon.
More than 111,000 people in southern Lebanon and at least 60,000 people in northern Israel have been displaced by the ongoing violence.
On Thursday, UN-appointed human rights experts condemned the âmalicious manipulationâ of thousands of electronic pagers and radios to explode simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria as âterrifyingâ violations of international law.
Israel has not said whether or not its security forces were responsible for the waves of attacks across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Under international law, those who ordered and carried out these attacks, which are amounting to war crimes, must be brought to justice.
The terrorist attacks reportedly killed at least 37 people and maimed or injured more than 3,400, including 200 critically. Among the dead were two children, a boy and a girl, and medical personnel. About 500 people suffered severe eye injuries. Others suffered serious injuries to their faces, hands and bodies.
âThese attacks violate the human right to life, absent any indication that the victims posed an imminent lethal threat to anyone else at the time,â the independent experts said in a statement.
âSuch attacks require prompt, independent investigation to establish the truth and enable accountability for the crime of murder. We express our deepest solidarity to the victims of these attacks,â they said.
The pagers and radios were reportedly distributed mainly among people allegedly associated with the Hezbollah movement, which includes civilian and military personnel and is involved in an armed conflict with Israel along Lebanonâsâ southern border.
âTo the extent that international humanitarian law applies, at the time of the attacks there was no way of knowing who possessed each device and who was nearby,â the statement said.
âSimultaneous attacks by thousands of devices would inevitably violate humanitarian law, by failing to verify each target, and distinguish between protected civilians and those who could potentially be attacked for taking a direct part in hostilities.â
The experts said such attacks could constitute the war crimes of murder, targeting of civilians and indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the right to life.
Humanitarian law also prohibits the use of booby traps disguised as seemingly innocuous portable objects when they are specifically designed and constructed with explosives - and this could include a modified civilian pager, the experts said. A booby trap is a device designed to kill or injure that is activated unexpectedly when a person performs an apparently safe action, such as answering a pager.
âIt is also a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians, including to intimidate or deter them from supporting an adversary,â the experts warned. âA climate of fear now pervades everyday life in Lebanon,â the statement said.
The experts urged the UN to carry out a prompt, effective, thorough, impartial, and transparent investigation into the attacks, for which they offered assistance.
âStates must bring to justice those who ordered and executed these attacks, including by exercising universal jurisdiction over war crimes,â they said.
The experts urged all parties to the conflict to refrain from further violations of humanitarian law and settle their disputes peacefully in accordance with international law.
âThe escalation of violence destabilizes the whole region. The Security Council and the General Assembly must act to restore peace and justice,â the experts urged.
Enforcing compliance with international law is the responsibility of the UN Security Council. But on Friday, the Security Council again failed to act, marking yet another breakdown in the international rule of law.
On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres, in a statement issued by his spokesperson, expressed his deep alarm at the explosions of the devices, which resulted in dozens of deaths and thousands of injuries.
Guterres urged all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation. He also called on the concerned actors to recommit themselves to the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 and to return immediately to a cessation of hostilities in order to restore stability.
Since late 2019, Lebanon has been experiencing a complex humanitarian crisis due to several major socioeconomic shocks, ongoing political instability, and a sharp economic deterioration. Hyperinflation, the depreciation of the Lebanese Pound (LBP), and the lack of livelihood opportunities have exacerbated poverty and fueled hunger.
Poverty is the root cause of hunger in the Middle Eastern country. More than 80 percent of people in Lebanon live in multidimensional poverty, which reflects deprivation in areas such as health care, electricity, water, sanitation, transportation, connectivity, and income opportunities.
In addition, Lebanon remains the world's largest refugee-hosting country per capita. More than 13 years into the Syria crisis, the Lebanese government estimates that the country is hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees, making Lebanon the second largest host country after Turkey. The country is also home to 209,000 registered Palestinian refugees.
Lebanon's financial and economic crisis is one of the world's most severe economic collapses since the mid-19th century, according to the World Bank. The political and economic crisis in Lebanon has led to widespread poverty among the population, the collapse of public services, and growing social tensions.
Since October 7, fighting along the Israeli-Lebanese border between armed groups - including Hezbollah - and the Israeli military has had a disastrous impact on the civilian population. More than 111,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced by the fighting in the south. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), many of those displaced are in urgent need of assistance.
As of Friday, at least 147 civilians have been killed in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon. A further escalation of hostilities and a widening of the war would have devastating consequences for the civilian population in Lebanon and Israel.