Jan 13, 2021.
“President Michel Aoun today asked caretaker Foreign
Minister Charbel Wehbe to address an urgent letter to the U.N. Security Council
and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to condemn Israel’s aggression and
aerial violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and Resolution 1701, after the
intensification of the Israeli violations of the Lebanese airspace,” the
Presidency said.
The National News Agency meanwhile reported that Wehbe
submitted the complaint to Guterres and the Security Council through Lebanon’s
permanent envoy to the U.N. Ambassador Amal Mudallali.
The complaint describes “the Israeli attacks on
Lebanese sovereignty through the continuous and dangerous aerial violations
over the past few days” as a “blatant violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution
1701,” urging the Council to “condemn Israel over this aggression and put an
immediate end to it to preserve stability, security and peace in the region.”
Israeli warplanes had earlier in the day staged
successive overflights at low altitude in the skies over the South, especially
its western and central sectors, before reaching Beirut and its suburbs.
The jets also violated the Lebanese airspace over the
southern regions of Nabatiyeh and Iqlim al-Tuffah, staging mock raids at medium
altitude.
Israel regularly violates Lebanon airspace, often to
carry out strikes in neighboring Syria. On Christmas Eve, Israeli jets flew low
late into the night, terrorizing Beirut residents who are no strangers to such
flights. They were followed by reported Israeli strikes in Syria.
The frequency of low flying warplanes over the capital
has intensified in the last two weeks, making residents jittery as tensions run
high in the region on the final days of President Donald Trump's
administration.
Israel and Lebanon are technically at war. Hizbullah,
the powerful Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, is a sworn enemy of Israel
and the two have had a series of confrontations, including a full-scale war in
2006.
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a
year-end interview, said Israel's efforts to curb his group's ability to
acquire precision-guided missiles have failed. He boasted that Hizbullah now
has twice as many such missiles as it had last year.
Israel has in recent months expressed concern that
Hizbullah is trying to establish production facilities to make precision-guided
missiles.
