Russian diplomat cautions on rising threat of a “third Lebanon war”

“It’s currently almost impossible to accurately predict how the conflict will unfold. However, one can already say with certainty that the risk of a full-scale war is extremely high,” the envoy told the Rossiya-24 TV channel. “If the Third Lebanon War – which is what it’s called in the media here – eventually breaks out, it is highly likely to escalate into a regional conflict,”  Alexander Rudakov, as reported by TASS.

“We might see the activation of mutual support mechanisms across the entire axis of resistance. This would lead to a much larger scale of hostilities and far-reaching consequences,” the ambassador noted. “But whose interests would that serve? Certainly not those of the Lebanese people,” he said.

On the morning of September 23, the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the start of a “preemptive offensive operation,” which involved massive strikes. According to the IDF, their target is “the military infrastructure that the Hezbollah movement has been building for the past 20 years.” As IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy noted, “Ultimately, everything is aimed at creating conditions” so that residents of northern Israel “can return to their homes.”

Dozens of villages and several regional settlements came under attack by the Israeli army. In turn, Hezbollah fighters fired dozens of rockets towards the north of the Jewish state.

The latest escalation of the confrontation began after a series of massive explosions of pagers, walkie-talkies, and radio receivers occurred in Lebanon on September 17-18. As a result, dozens of people were killed and about three thousand were injured. Experts suggested that this was an act of sabotage organized by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad.

Later, Israeli aircraft struck a residential building in a southern suburb of Beirut, killing more than 50 people, including Hezbollah special operations commander Ibrahim Aqil.

In response, Shiite resistance fighters attacked the Ramat David Israeli Air Force base and the Rafael military-industrial complex in northern Haifa. Several rockets fell in residential areas on the outskirts of the city.

The First Lebanon War was a military operation waged by Israel in Lebanon in 1982. Its goal was to destroy the bases of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Second Lebanon War was an armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that took place in July–August 2006.