Pro-government Iranian demonstrators wave flags from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 7, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

Residents look on as rescuers arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on September 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

A senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Friday (September 20, 2024) that further violence between Israel and Iran-aligned groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon risked igniting a far more damaging conflict.

“We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far,” UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the 15-member council, which met about attacks this week on Hezbollah.

Also read | Hezbollah handed out pagers hours before blasts — even after checks

“It is not too late to avoid such folly. There is still room for diplomacy,” she said. “I also strongly urge Member States with influence over the parties to leverage it now.”

As its war in Gaza nears one year old, Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an airstrike on Beirut on Friday, vowing to press a new military campaign until it secures the area around the Lebanese border.

The strike followed two days of attacks in which Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. Those attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

“It is imperative that even as facts emerge about the latest incidents – in which I reiterate, the United States played no role – all parties refrain from any actions which could plunge the region into a devastating war,” Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood told the council.

He said the U.S. expects all parties to comply with international humanitarian law and take all reasonable steps to minimize harm to civilians, especially in densely populated areas.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began rocketing Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is fighting Hamas.

Israel, which last fought an all-out war against Hezbollah 18 years ago, has said it will use force if necessary to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in northern Israel.

U.N. human right chief Volker Turk said it was “difficult to conceive” how the attacks on Hezbollah’s communications devices “could possibly conform with the key principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack, under international humanitarian law.”

Mr. Turk called for an independent, thorough and transparent investigation and for those who ordered and carried out the attacks to be held to account.

A view shows damage after what security sources said was a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, on July 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Israeli Army said on July 30 it had struck around 10 Hezbollah targets overnight in seven different areas of south Lebanon, killing one fighter from the Iran-backed militant group.

The Army also “struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility, terror infrastructure sites, military structures and a launcher in southern Lebanon”, the Army said.

The strikes came after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit a Druze Arab town in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Saturday and killed 12 children aged between 10 and 16.

The Druze, who follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam, are an Arabic-speaking community present in Israel, Lebanon and Syria, including the Golan.

On a visit to Majdal Shams on July 29, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would deliver a “severe response” to the strike.

Israel says the rocket that killed the children was an Iranian-made Falaq and was fired by its ally Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has denied responsibility for firing the rocket though it clamed multiple launches towards Israel on July 27.

Israeli forces and Hezbollah have been engaged in near-daily clashes along the border since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.

The violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 24 civilians on the Israeli side, including in the Golan, according to Army figures.

At least 527 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, according to an AFP tally. Most have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 104 civilians.

The Gaza war broke out when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still captive in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 39,400 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry, which does not provide details of civilian and militant deaths.

A woman carries a frame that shows a portrait for Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, as she passes destroyed houses that were hit by Israeli airstrikes, in Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, on June 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran on June 29 warned that “all Resistance Fronts”, a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.

The comment from Iran’s mission to New York comes with fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. The two sides have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war in Gaza began.

Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides. Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.

In a post on social media platform X, the Iranian mission said it “deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon”.

But, it added, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue. All options, incl. the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”

The war in Gaza began in October when Hamas Palestinian militants attacked southern Israel.

Iran, which backs Hamas, has praised the attack as a success but has denied any involvement.

Alongside Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have repeatedly struck commercial ships in the Red Sea area in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Iran also backs other groups in the region.

The Islamic republic has not recognised Israel since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s United States-backed shah.

Fears of regional war also soared in April, after an air strike that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Iran hit back with an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13-14.

Iran’s state media later reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan as U.S. media quoted American officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.

Tehran downplayed the reported Israeli raid.

An Israeli strike on a truck in Syria near the Lebanese border killed two Hezbollah members at dawn on February 25, a war monitor said.

“Israel struck a civilian truck with a missile near the Syrian-Lebanese border,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a report.

The strike led to “the death of at least two Hezbollah members”, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria.

Hezbollah later announced in separate statements that two of its fighters were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase it uses to refer to members killed by Israeli fire.

A source close to Hezbollah confirmed that both were killed this morning in Syria.

Syrian state media did not report the strike.

Since Syria’s civil war began in 2011 following an uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria, primarily against pro-Iran forces, among them Hezbollah and the Syrian army.

The strikes have multiplied amidst the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

An Israeli strike on a Damascus residential neighbourhood on Wednesday killed three Iran-backed fighters, a Syrian and two foreigners, according to the Observatory.

On February 10, the Observatory reported an Israeli strike on a building west of Damascus that killed three people from pro-Iran militias.

Since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, Hezbollah has announced the death of 16 members killed by Israeli strikes in Syria.

The Israeli military announced on February 3 that it had “attacked, from the ground and air, more than 50 such targets of Hezbollah spread throughout Syria”.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria.