The 79th United Nations general assembly is to open on Tuesday morning amid a massive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon that has brought Israel and the Shia militant group Hezbollah closer than ever to all-out war, despite fevered diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the conflict.
On Monday, diplomats huddled behind the scenes at the United Nations headquarters and midtown Manhattan hotels for bilateral and ministerial meetings on issues from Atlantic Ocean ecology to Ukraine’s energy supply, before what the UN bills as its own “Super Bowl of global diplomacy”.
At the same time, media livestreams showed Israeli shells and bombs raining down over southern Lebanon in strikes that killed 356 and displaced thousands, according to the country’s health minister.
“The continuing Israeli aggression on Lebanon is a war of extermination in every sense of the word and a destructive plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns,” the Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, told a cabinet meeting, according to local media.
He urged “the United Nations and the general assembly and influential countries … to deter the [Israeli] aggression”.
But key Israeli allies including the US voiced only muted criticism over the new bombing campaign, raising questions about what diplomatic pressure was being put on the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as his government claimed it was escalating the conflict in order to pressure Hezbollah into negotiations.
Speculation remains over whether Netanyahu will attend the general assembly, as he may remain at home to manage the government during the escalating violence in southern Lebanon.
As of Monday, he was still slated to arrive in New York towards the end of the week and address the UN on Thursday or Friday. Mikati has already cancelled his trip to the US.
In a statement on Monday, Netanyahu issued a defiant message that “Israel’s war” was not with the people of Lebanon but with Hezbollah. “For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields … once our operation is finished, you can come back safely to your homes,” the message said.
The United Nations interim force in Lebanon (Unifil), a peacekeeping mission, expressed “grave concern for the safety of civilians in southern Lebanon amidst the most intense Israeli bombing campaign since last October”.
The attacks harming civilians are “not only violations of international law but could amount to war crimes”, the statement said.
The Unifil commander, Lt Gen Aroldo Lázaro, had been in contact with Lebanese and Israeli parties, and had made efforts to “reduce tensions and halt the shelling”, it said.
UN peacekeepers were deployed to monitor a ceasefire along the so-called blue line between Israel and Lebanon under resolution 1701, which brought an end to the war between the two sides in 2006. The mission includes recording violations of the ceasefire.
Netanyahu, a former UN ambassador in the 1980s, is famously critical of the institution, which he has accused of providing a forum for antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
An appearance by the Israeli prime minister would probably spark a walkout of a number of UN delegations who have criticised Israel’s war in Gaza. It would also come as a panel of judges from the international criminal court considers whether to charge him for war crimes.
He “hates and mistrusts the institution but he does like coming here to tell us that we’re all rubbish”, said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.
The summit will mark Joe Biden’s last address before the United Nations as the US president caps off five decades of government service with an effort to settle one of the globe’s most intractable conflicts.
He has said repeatedly that a diplomatic resolution remains possible in the nearly year-old war in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, but has been unable to secure a temporary ceasefire and hostage exchange that would be the first step of a potential peace deal between the two sides.
Speaking with reporters after arriving at the White House on Marine One, he confirmed that he was worried about the rising tensions in the Middle East. “We’re going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out. And we’re still pushing hard,” he said.
On Monday Biden met Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in the first visit by a United Arab Emirates leader to the US since 1971. While Biden was successful at strengthening regional ties with Gulf states such as the UAE, relations have become increasingly strained over the US support for Israel in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia last week said it would not recognise Israel unless it agreed to a two-state solution with an independent Palestine, and the Emirates have said they would not support postwar reconstruction in Gaza unless it was part of a plan to form an independent Palestinian state. The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, is to meet with Zayed later on Monday.
Keir Starmer and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, will also attend this week’s summit, where the UN will review a number of initiatives to reform its security council that will probably be blocked owing to divisions with other permanent members Russia and China.
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