Hariri to Ambassadors: Israel Must be Held Responsible for Its Blatant Attack

Prime Minister Saad Hariri met Monday afternoon at the Grand Serail with the ambassadors and deputy heads of mission of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: U.S. Ambassador Elizabeth Richard, Russian Ambassador Alexander Zasypkin, Chinese Ambassador Wang Kejian, British Chargé d'Affaires Benjamin Wastnage and French Chargé d'Affaires Salina Grenet-Catalano.

He discussed with them the latest developments and the situation in Lebanon and the region, his office said.

During the meeting, Hariri informed the attendees that he called for the meeting “because of the gravity of the situation after the clear Israeli violation of Lebanese sovereignty and UNSCR 1701, and the targeting of a populated civilian area, without any consideration for the international law or civilian lives,” the office said in a statement.

He added: “The Lebanese government finds an interest in avoiding any slide towards a serious escalation, but this requires the international community to prove its rejection of this flagrant violation of our sovereignty and of Resolution 1701.”

Hariri also informed the envoys that Lebanon will file an official complaint to the U.N. Security Council about the violations, saying: “It is very important that your countries maintain the existing consensus among them to preserve security and stability in Lebanon and the region, because any escalation may turn into a regional cycle of violence, the scope of which no one can predict.”

He added: “Israel must be held responsible for its continued violations of Resolution 1701 since 2006. It must also be held responsible for the blatant attack on Beirut’s suburbs, seeing as it knew in advance that this would threaten the existing balance that preserved the security of the international border for 13 years.”

Hariri also announced that the Higher Defense Council will hold a meeting tomorrow afternoon to discuss the developments, and hoped that the ambassadors would remain in contact to follow up on the situation.

Earlier, Hariri met with the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis in the presence of former minister Ghattas Khoury.

One drone came down and another exploded early Sunday in a Hizbullah stronghold in the southern Beirut suburb of Mouawad, damaging a Hizbullah media center and lightly injuring three people who were in the building.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah described the incident as an Israeli “suicide drone attack,” threatening to down any Israeli drone flying over Lebanon from now on.

Shortly after Nasrallah’s remarks, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command said an Israeli drone had bombed its base in the Lebanese eastern border region of Qusaya.