European, Arab pressure on Israel to stop strikes on Beirut
European and Arab states have pressured Israel to stop targeting Beirut, a Western diplomat told AFP on Friday, two days after deadly Israeli strikes on Lebanon that left more than 300 people dead.
On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military issued a warning of incoming strikes for large, densely populated areas of southern Beirut, but had not carried out the threat as of midday on Friday.
The Western diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss sensitive matters, said on Friday "There is ongoing diplomatic pressure from European states, Gulf states and Egypt on Israel to prevent renewed Israeli airstrikes on Beirut after 'Black Wednesday'".
More than 300 people, mostly civilians according to a Lebanese military source, were killed in the wave of simultaneous Israeli strikes on Wednesday on Beirut and other areas of Lebanon.
The strikes were launched despite the announcement hours earlier of a truce between the United States and Iran, with Israel and the U.S. saying it did not apply to Lebanon.
Thursday's Israeli warning included areas home to major hospitals and the road to the country's only international airport.
Public Works and Transport Minister Fayez Rasamni said, in a statement carried by the state-run National News Agency (NNA) on Thursday, that he had "received assurances" from foreign diplomats that the airport and the road leading to it would be spared.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Zaatari, director of the country's largest public medical facility, Rafic Hariri Hospital, told AFP: "We have received assurances, including from the International Committee of the Red Cross that the hospital would not be targeted."
The World Health Organization on Thursday called on Israel to cancel its evacuation warning for the Jnah district of Beirut because around 450 patients were in the Rafik Hariri and Al-Zahraa hospitals in the district, including 40 in intensive care.
In southern Lebanon, Israeli strikes hit several villages during the night and on Friday, the NNA reported.
An AFP photographer saw firefighters extinguishing a fire in a building blown apart by a nighttime strike in the village of Habboush, near Nabatiyeh.
Hezbollah, for its part, claimed several rocket launches on northern Israel, as well as attacks on Israeli troops advancing in the border area.
European and Arab diplomatic pressure on Israel is nearly as effective as it has always been .. not at all. The French do Iran's bidding in trying to link the Lebanon-Israel war negotiations to the United States-Iran war negotiations. "Black Wednesday" clearly means that French diplomats are talking to themselves alone and with no effect on a path to peace. When will Lebanon's government exercise its own responsibilities and authority in making its own peace for all Lebanese and ignoring what games foreign helpers are playing?