Lebanon Files U.N. Complaint against Israel at Aoun's Request

Lebanon on Tuesday filed a U.N. complaint against Israel over its intensive aerial violations in recent days.

“President Michel Aoun today asked caretaker Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe to address an urgent letter to the U.N. Security Council and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to condemn Israel’s aggression and aerial violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and Resolution 1701, after the intensification of the Israeli violations of the Lebanese airspace,” the Presidency said.

The National News Agency meanwhile reported that Wehbe submitted the complaint to Guterres and the Security Council through Lebanon’s permanent envoy to the U.N. Ambassador Amal Mudallali.

The complaint describes “the Israeli attacks on Lebanese sovereignty through the continuous and dangerous aerial violations over the past few days” as a “blatant violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701,” urging the Council to “condemn Israel over this aggression and put an immediate end to it to preserve stability, security and peace in the region.”

Israeli warplanes had earlier in the day staged successive overflights at low altitude in the skies over the South, especially its western and central sectors, before reaching Beirut and its suburbs.

The jets also violated the Lebanese airspace over the southern regions of Nabatiyeh and Iqlim al-Tuffah, staging mock raids at medium altitude.

Israel regularly violates Lebanon airspace, often to carry out strikes in neighboring Syria. On Christmas Eve, Israeli jets flew low late into the night, terrorizing Beirut residents who are no strangers to such flights. They were followed by reported Israeli strikes in Syria.

The frequency of low flying warplanes over the capital has intensified in the last two weeks, making residents jittery as tensions run high in the region on the final days of President Donald Trump's administration.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war. Hizbullah, the powerful Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, is a sworn enemy of Israel and the two have had a series of confrontations, including a full-scale war in 2006.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a year-end interview, said Israel's efforts to curb his group's ability to acquire precision-guided missiles have failed. He boasted that Hizbullah now has twice as many such missiles as it had last year.

Israel has in recent months expressed concern that Hizbullah is trying to establish production facilities to make precision-guided missiles.