Israeli attacks provoke entire Mideast: Official

With Israel ramping up its military operations in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, a senior Lebanese official warned that the escalating crisis in his country would roil the entire Middle East region.

Joining the calls at the UN for an immediate cease-fire, Abdallah Bou Habib, foreign minister of Lebanon, said his country was "enduring a crisis which is threatening its existence".

"We need to find a political diplomatic solution to the crisis. Diplomacy is not always easy. But it is the only path to saving innocent lives and nations. Lebanon is determined to tread upon this path," Bou Habib said in an address at the UN General Assembly, or UNGA, on Thursday.

He said the future of Lebanon's people and their prosperity are in peril, which requires an immediate international intervention before the situation spirals out of control with a domino effect that makes the situation "impossible to contain".

More than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours, the UN refugee agency said on Friday, as the conflict intensified.

France had earlier proposed at a UN Security Council emergency meeting a 21-day cease-fire in Lebanon, in UN diplomacy with the United States, "to allow for negotiations," which Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed, according to a report by Xinhua.

But before he left for New York on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the report about a cease-fire was incorrect.

On Friday, an Israeli security official said that any ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon would be carried out as swiftly as possible.

"We will try to do it as short as we can," the official told journalists, speaking anonymously in line with security rules.

European Union Council President Charles Michel told the UNGA that drawing Lebanon into the spiral was "absolutely irresponsible" and noted that the calls to Israel, including those with the Netanyahu government, have borne no fruit.

Washington role slammed

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in his speech at the UN, slammed the "madness" that has continued in Gaza, accusing Israel of wiping out generations of Palestinians as he singled out Washington for continuing its diplomatic cover and weapons to Tel Aviv despite the mounting death toll.

As Abbas spoke on Thursday, The Times of Israel reported the same day that Tel Aviv had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the US "to support its ongoing military efforts and to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region".

Citing a statement from the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the report said the package included $3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement, which had been received and earmarked for critical military purchases, and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems.

As these separate events unfolded, Israeli bombings in Lebanon have so far killed more than 700 people since Sept 23. Al Jazeera reported that airstrikes hitting Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp killed 15 people on Thursday, while raids continued in the West Bank.

Belal Alakhras, a political analyst and Palestinian researcher at the University of Malaya in Malaysia, said the situation in Gaza since late last year has "set a dangerous precedent".

"The Israeli authorities have effectively made an entire population and civilian infrastructure into military targets, with little restriction or outside intervention. This approach, aimed at terrorizing people and asserting dominance, has now spread beyond Palestine to Lebanon and other countries in the region," Alakhras told China Daily.

He said the lack of international action to stop the genocide in Gaza, with continued Western support, especially from the US, has paved the way for wider aggression.

"While this shows Israel's desperation to contain resistance, it should worry the global community. A relatively small entity, backed by foreign support, has shown it can threaten an entire population and destabilize a region while the world watches," Alakhras added.

Agencies contributed to this story.

jan@chinadailyapac.com