Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Monday during a meeting with the ambassadors from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council said that Beirut wanted to avoid an escalation of tensions with Israel over recent attacks, but that the international community needed to reject Israel’s “blatant violation” of Lebanese sovereignty.
“The Lebanese Government finds an interest in avoiding any slide towards a serious escalation, but this requires the international community to prove its rejection of this flagrant violation of our sovereignty and of resolution 1701”, Hariri said, cited by the Lebanese state-run National News Agency.