21st October 2024
Urgent Peace Measures Needed for Israel-Lebanon-Hezbollah Conflict
The assasination of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September 2024 has added a new element to the current conflicts in the Middle East: Gaza, the West Bank, and the Israel-Lebanon frontier area. Hassan Nasrallah had led Hezbollah for some three decades, building Hezbollah into a powerful Shiite political party with a network of social services and a heavily armed militia. Nasrallah’s death will weaken but not eliminate the Hezbollah movement, already weakened by the 17 and 18 September attack on Hezbollah members by boby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies.
Antonio Guterres, the U.N. Secretary-General had made a cry of alarm in his opening address to the U.N. General Assembly on 24 September saying “Gaza is a non-stop nightmare that threatens to take the entire region with it. Look no further than Lebanon. Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon – the people of Israel -and the people of the world cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.”
Today, urgent peace measures are needed. An earlier France-USA proposal for a 21-day ceasefire was rejected by Israel. Non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the United Nations such as the Association may be able to play a positive role.