Bou Habib orders UN complaint over Baalbek strikes

Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Wednesday ordered the Ministry’s competent department to file a complaint with the U.N. Security Council over the latest Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek region.

“The fiercest Israeli attacks yet, on March 11 and 12, targeted civilians in residential areas in the vicinity of the city of Baalbek and neighboring villages, which resulted in deaths and injuries among civilians and unarmed innocents,” the Ministry said in a statement.

“What’s more concerning, is that this escalation came in areas that are distant from the southern Lebanese border, which points to Israel’s desire to expand the conflict and drag the entire region into a war that might be triggered by such hostile acts,” the Ministry added.

Accordingly, it urged the international community to “press Israel to halt its escalating attacks,” calling on the Security Council member states to “unanimously condemn the Israeli attacks against Lebanon and work on fully implementing Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) in order to reach permanent stability and tranquility on Lebanon’s southern border.”

Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon killed two people Tuesday and one person on Monday, in escalating tit-for-tat fire with Hezbollah that has raised fears of spiraling violence.

Since the Gaza war erupted in October, Hamas ally Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire across their shared border, including several recent Israeli strikes on Hezbollah further north.

Tuesday’s raids destroyed a building in Sarain, less than 20 kilometers from Baalbek, a key Hezbollah bastion near Lebanon's border with Syria, while another hit a building in the nearby town of Nabi Sheet.

Hezbollah announced later that two of its fighters who hailed from the Bekaa were "martyred on the road to Jerusalem," the phrase it uses to refer to members killed by Israeli fire.