Guterres: The Israeli army must withdraw from Lebanon!

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has stated that Israel’s military presence in southern Lebanon must come to an end.

“UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) is working closely with the Lebanese armed forces in the south with the clear aim of ending the Israeli presence in the south,” Guterres said during a meeting with the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri.

The 60-day ceasefire, brokered by the United States, began on November 27, in an attempt to halt the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, which has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 people and injured over 16,000 others in Lebanon.

Lebanese leaders have called for the UN Secretary-General’s help in facilitating the return of Syrian refugees to their country following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Lebanon has a population of about 6 million people. It hosts 780,000 registered Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands more who are unregistered. This makes Lebanon the country with the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.

On December 8, Syrian opposition fighters captured the Syrian capital, Damascus, ending the 54-year rule of the Assad family in Syria.

The Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than half a million people and displaced half of the pre-war population of 23 million. More than 5 million Syrians have been displaced abroad since the conflict began.

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