EU foreign ministers to hold emergency meeting on Lebanon

Josep Borrell, the European Union's high representative for Foreign Affairs, will convene member states' foreign ministers on Monday to discuss the situation in Lebanon, Borrell's spokesman confirmed.

The ministers will hold a video conference at 17.00 to discuss Europe's response to the recent escalation in Lebanon, spokesman Peter Stano said.

No formal decisions will be taken at the meeting, but the ministers will discuss the direction of European policy towards Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the international community, Stano said.

More than a thousand people have been killed since a military escalation between Israel and the Lebanese Islamist militia Hezbollah began in mid-September. 

On Friday, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, but the country continues to seek out and "eliminate" its "enemies". On Monday, the Israeli army struck in central Beirut, killing three members of a Palestinian armed group.

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, Borrell said that no power, not even the United States, seemed able to stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war against Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza. Borrell said the Middle East is at serious risk of full-scale war.

^{Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted the plains around the southern Lebanese village of Khiam on September 30, 2024 © PHOTO RABIH DAHER / AFP}