Brussels, September 30th, 2024 – Israel’s elimination of Hezbollah top leadership, including its secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike late on Friday night, has led to renewed calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Returning home on Sunday from bilateral meetings with government leaders at the sidelines of the High-level week of the 79th session of the UNGA in New York, ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell said that “the failure of the United Nations Security Council to implement its resolution 1701 left Israel with no other choice than to intervene in Lebanon to prevent another October 7 massacre as it took out the top leadership of the Hezbollah terrorist organization within one week.”
ECI has repeatedly called upon the UN Security Council to implement UNSC resolution 1701. Its central objective is to prevent the rearmament of Hezbollah after the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006. Still, under the direct watch of UN peacekeepers the Iran backed Shiite militia has instead taken over the Lebanese government and become the most powerful terrorist group in the world with an estimated arsenal of some 140,000 missiles and rockets stored in civilian homes and institutions across Lebanon in flagrant violation of international law.
Sandell noted that “those UN member states who are now warning against an escalation in Israel’s defensive war against Iran’s terrorist proxies in the region had 18 years to prevent this from happening but failed to live up to their commitments under UNSC resolution 1701.”
On Saturday, the US State Department issued a statement saying that “Hezbollah was responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. The death of Nasrallah from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese.”
As of Monday afternoon the European Union had not issued a joint statement but was busy organising an emergency meeting for EU Foreign Ministers to respond to the escalating conflict in the Middle East. However, in separate comments on Sunday the foreign ministers of Germany and France repeated their calls for a ceasefire while warning Israel against a ground operation.
In a brief statement on Monday before departing for meetings in Brussels, Sandell noted that “the people of Lebanon, Muslims and Christians alike, deserve national sovereignty and the right to live in peace and freedom without interference from the Islamic regime in Tehran which has de facto controlled the country for many years through its Shiite proxy. The world is a better place with the departure of Nasrallah which provides a unique opportunity for the world community to finally free Lebanon from the grip of Hezbollah.”
