Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said Wednesday that Israel would suffer the “consequences of its aggressive” policies toward the Arabs.
“Israel’s aggressive policy toward the Arab world in general, and Syrian and Lebanon in particular, has not changed, even if the circumstances and objectives do,” Lahoud said, cited by the Daily Star newspaper.
“The solidarity between Lebanon and Syria will enable the two brotherly countries to foil Israeli plans sooner or later.”
Speaking after meeting with Army Commander General Michel Suleiman and the heads of various security services, Lahoud contended that “the Israeli government is responsible for the consequences of these aggressive plans.”
The president and the heads of security services were marking the fifth anniversary of the Qana massacre, said the paper.
The European Union presidency said Wednesday that Israel’s attack had been excessive and that Israeli incursions into Palestinian self-rule territories were illegal.
“The spiral of violence must be reversed,” Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the 15 nation bloc, said in a statement, quoted by AFP.
“The Israeli attack on Syrian objectives in Lebanon, the first in many years, as a retaliation for the Hizbollah attacks on the Shabaa Farms, was an excessive and disproportionate reply.”
In New York, the UN Security Council on Wednesday urged all sides to show maximum restraint in response to the “dangerous escalation.”
It endorsed “an appeal for calm and restraint” made by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday, hours after Israeli planes attacked the radar station.
“Council members condemned this renewed cycle of violence that has inflamed an already tense situation in the region,” the statement said.
It concluded by calling on “all parties to respect the Blue Line, to exercise maximum restraint, and to refrain from any action that would further exacerbate the situation,” the daily said.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud received a new group of foreign envoys, urging their governments to back diplomatic moves to head off further strikes by Israel.
For the third consecutive day, Hammoud briefed the envoys from Canada, the Czech Republic, Armenia, Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and Yugoslavia on a letter sent by his country to Annan asserting the need for the UN to “deter Israel,” the paper said.
Hammoud had earlier told ambassadors from UN Security Council member states that Beirut considered Israel’s action a “dangerously aggressive escalation” and an “aggression against both Lebanon and Syria.”
He reiterated that the government would not drop its demand to recover all Israeli-occupied territory, including the Shabaa Farms.
The air strike, in which three Syrian soldiers were killed and six wounded, followed Saturday’s attack by Hizbollah on a tank in the Shabaa Farms area, killing an Israeli soldier.
Several Arab states, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, expressed support for Lebanon and Syria in confronting Israel.
The attack will be discussed at an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League council in Cairo on Saturday. The meeting was convened by Lebanon and Syria to discuss the Israeli attack.
Meanwhile, diplomatic sources said urgent contacts had been undertaken by France, Russia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia with Annan and the US to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from “going ahead with undermining regional security and stability.”
The sources told the paper that the four countries behind the contacts are arguing that the official US stand “encourages” the Jewish state to “play its new game, which gives top priority to Israel’s security.”
They also said that the Israeli air strikes at Dahr al-Baidar constituted a violation, not only of the Blue Line drawn by the UN in the southern border region, but also of Lebanese airspace.
They said the results of diplomatic contacts held so far showed that the US “adheres to its stand,” namely that the Israeli air strike was a reaction to Hizbollah’s operation Saturday.
UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ASKS ISRAEL TO RELEASE ALL LEBANESE DETAINEES
The 57th session of the commission on human rights passed a resolution Wednesday calling on Israel to release all Lebanese detainees and to provide UNIFIL with maps of minefields in the south, the Daily Star said.
The resolution, which was not supported by key member states, said the commission was “gravely concerned at the persistent violation by Israel of the principles of international law regarding the protection of human rights … as well as the grave violation of the relevant provisions of international humanitarian law.” It also condemned Israel’s “persistent detention, ill treatment, and torture of many Lebanese civilians.”
The United States, however, voted against the resolution while the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, among others, abstained.
It was passed by 33 out of the 53 member states.
The Geneva-based commission said it was “gravely concerned” about the tens of thousands of land mines left behind by Israel in southern Lebanon and deplored “the failure of the Israeli government to deliver all the plans of those land mines.”
It also expressed its indignation at the March 4, 1998 ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court “permitting the Israeli authorities to retain Lebanese detainees in Israeli prisons without trial and to hold them as hostages and for bargaining purposes.”
The commission called on Israel to immediately release the Lebanese prisoners and decided to “continue its consideration” of their situation.
Finally, it asked Annan “to bring the present resolution to the attention of the government of Israel and to call upon it to comply with its provisions” and to “report to the General Assembly … and to the commission ... on the results of his efforts in this regard,” according to the paper – Albawaba.com
