Netanyahu violating state sovereignty with complicity of US, Europe: French MP
“Appalled by the scale of the ongoing massacre in Lebanon,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, a left-wing French politician and a former Member of the European Parliament, said in a post on X.
“Netanyahu is violating the sovereignty of states throughout the region with the complicity of Europe and the USA. The genocide in Gaza is spreading without limits.”
Jean-Luc Melenchon, a left-wing French politician and former Member of the European Parliament, has said the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah “is one more step towards the invasion of Lebanon and general war”.
In a post on X, he said: “France no longer counts on the ground. Netanyahu’s crimes will continue since they are unpunished. The danger is extreme for the region and the world.”
Turkish president calls for UN action to stop Israeli attacks in Lebanon
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Lebanon is the new target of Israel’s policy of “genocide, occupation, and invasion” and urged the UN Security Council and other bodies to stop the attacks.
The Israeli government is “becoming more reckless” as it is backed by world powers that provide it with weapons and ammunition to commit “massacres”, the Turkish president said in a post on X.
“It’s challenging all humanity, human values and international law,” he added.
Erdogan also said Turkey stood with the Lebanese people and government, offering his condolences for those killed in the Israeli strikes, while saying the Muslim world should show a more “determined” stance.
Any ceasefire talk now ‘out of context’
Meron Rapoport, a Tel Aviv-based investigative journalist and the editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call, says a chance for a ceasefire is very small after Nasrallah’s killing.
“To talk about a ceasefire now seems out of context,” he told Al Jazeera.
Looking ahead, Rapoport said a continuation of Hezbollah attacks in Israel is likely to increase pressure on the Israeli leadership to launch a ground invasion in Lebanon.
“If Hezbollah continues firing rockets into Israel in the next weeks, then the effect of the killing of Nasrallah will dissipate a little bit in the Israeli public and there will be a call – certainly from the residents of the north, who left their houses and cannot go back – to push for a ground operation in Lebanon,” he added.
Commenting on the prospect of a political solution in such a scenario, Rapoport said it currently looked “unlikely, but not impossible”.
Some US officials applaud news of Nasrallah's death — even as fears of wider conflict grow
Some senior US officials celebrated the news of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s death in a major Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon — even despite growing concerns about the possibility of another full-scale war breaking out in the Middle East.
“It’s welcome,” one senior US administration official told CNN after both the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s death. “He has massive American blood on his hands.”
President Joe Biden and the White House have yet to comment on the news of Nasrallah’s death, and the US has not said whether its own intelligence confirms his killing. The biggest question and concern for the Biden administration is what implications Nasrallah’s death will have in the coming days and weeks in the region, where the risk of escalation and a widening conflict had already been high.
Had the events of the past few days taken place six months ago, the risk of a second major war might have been even greater, the senior US administration official said. But Hezbollah and Iran — which backs the militant group — have been weakened, the official added.
Another senior US official previously told CNN that the US believes Iran will intervene in the conflict if they determine that they are about to “lose” Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy group.
The US has been leading an effort on a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah across the Israel-Lebanon border. Those talks now appear entirely up in the air. While US officials had initially suggested that both sides would swiftly agree to the framework, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly threw water on the ceasefire proposal, angering US officials.
