EU and UN call for “restraint” and “independent investigation” into Hezbollah rocket attack on Majdal Shams | The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com | Hana Levi Julian | 22 Tammuz 5784 – Sunday, July 28, 2024

Photo credit: Olivier Fitoussi / Flash 90

The European Union and the United Nations have condemned a horrific Hezbollah rocket attack on northern Israel on Saturday that killed 12 children and injured 30 others as they played soccer in the Israeli Druze village of Majdal Shams.

The missile used in the attack was an Iranian-made Falaq-1, carrying a warhead containing 53 kilograms of explosives, the Israel Defense Forces found in their initial investigation.

But despite their condemnations, senior officials from both international bodies called for “restraint” but made no suggestions on how to end the threat to northern Israel posed by Iran’s proxy in Lebanon.

“Shocking images,” said Joseph Borrell Fontelles, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the EU Commission.

“I condemn this bloodbath in the strongest possible terms. We need an independent international investigation into this unacceptable incident. We call on all parties to exercise utmost restraint and avoid further escalation,” Borrell wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) also condemned the attack in a joint statement by the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander, Lieutenant General Aroldo Lazaro.

“We regret the deaths of civilians – young children and teenagers – in Majdal Shams. Civilians must be protected at all times,” the statement said.

UNIFIL’s mandate began in 1978 but has been adapted several times since then, most recently after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, to include assisting the Lebanese Armed Forces “in taking steps to establish an area between the Blue Line and the Litani River free of armed personnel, assets and weapons, except those of the Lebanese Government and UNIFIL stationed in that area”. This is in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the ceasefire agreement that ended the war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Needless to say, UNIFIL refused to take on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, allowing the terrorist army to create an Iranian proxy state within a state along Israel’s northern border.

Like the EU, UNFIL insisted on moral equivalence in its statement, fearing a larger regional conflict.

“We call on the parties to exercise maximum restraint and put an end to the ongoing, intensified exchanges of fire, which could trigger a larger conflagration that would plunge the entire region into an unimaginable catastrophe,” the statement continued. “UNIFIL and UNSCOL are in contact with Lebanon and Israel.”

However, Lebanon cannot bow to the power of Hezbollah, which has created its own state within a state and managed to infiltrate the Lebanese government years ago.

Today, Hezbollah represents a significant faction in both the Lebanese parliament and the government cabinet and has successfully sabotaged every attempt to install a new president in the country for over a year, after former President Michel Aoun’s six-year term ended in October 2022.

Tor Wennesland, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, also condemned the attack and described the massacre as a “heinous rocket attack”.

Wennesland, like UNIFIL and the EU, also missed the point. She wrote hypocritically that “children continue to bear the burden of the horrific violence ravaging the region,” but chose moral equivalence over the truth.

“I call on everyone to exercise maximum restraint,” Wennesland wrote on X. “The firing of missiles over the Blue Line must stop immediately. The Middle East is on the brink; the world and the region cannot afford another open conflict.”

“Since October 8, when Iran’s proxy Hezbollah launched 2,295 attacks on Israel, killing people, destroying hundreds of homes and displacing tens of thousands, the UN and its ilk have been silent,” noted Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, in a post on X on Sunday. “When Israel finally prepares to respond, they will suddenly scream for de-escalation,” he noted sarcastically.

One must ask: if the targeted bombardment of children on a football field with 53 kilograms of explosives and the daily attacks from Lebanon that lead to the complete evacuation of Israeli residents from their homes along the border due to the danger do not already constitute an “open conflict”, how should one define it?