LONDON: British foreign minister David Lammy repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire amid reports of a potential escalation in the Israel-Lebanon conflict, after discussing the matter with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the phone on Monday.
“We’ve both seen the reports in the media about a next phase for Israel in Lebanon,” Lammy told Sky News, amid growing indications that Israel was on the verge of sending ground troops into Lebanon.
“We both agreed the position that we had at the UN last week that the best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution.”
Earlier in the day a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “all parties to show restraint.”
Lammy also repeated the government’s advice that British citizens leave Lebanon.
“We have secured places on commercial flights that are flying tomorrow so that UK nationals can get out. I urge them to leave, because the situation on the ground is fast moving,” he said.
“Whilst we will do everything we can to protect British nationals and those plans are in place to do so, we cannot anticipate the circumstances and the speed with which we could do that if things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days.”

GENEVA: Two-thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since the Gaza war began in October 2023, the UN said.

Updating its damage assessment, the UN Satellite Center, or UNOSAT, said very high-resolution imagery collected on Sept. 3 and 6 showed a clear deterioration.

“This analysis ... shows that two-thirds of the total structures in the Gaza Strip have sustained damage,” UNOSAT said.

“Those 66 percent of damaged buildings in the Gaza Strip account for 163,778 structures in total,” it said.

The last assessment, based on images from early July, determined that 63 percent of structures in the Palestinian territory had been damaged.

Monday’s update said the damage now included “52,564 structures that have been destroyed; 18,913 severely damaged; 35,591 possibly damaged structures; and 56,710 moderately affected.”

Gaza City has been notably affected, with 36,611 structures destroyed, it added.

UNOSAT and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said that approximately 68 percent of the permanent crop fields in the Gaza Strip showed “a significant decline in health and density” in September.

Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,615 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s Health Ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

Part of the UN Institute for Training and Research, or UNITAR, Geneva-based UNOSAT says its satellite imagery analysis helps the humanitarian community assess the extent of conflict-related damage and helps shape emergency relief efforts.

“Over the past year, UNOSAT’s team has worked tirelessly to provide the world with precise and timely insights into the impact of the conflict on buildings and infrastructure in Gaza,” said UNITAR’s executive director Nikhil Seth.

Critics highlight that from the time a UN General Assembly vote paved the way for Israel’s establishment in 1948, the country has ignored numerous UN resolutions and international court rulings without consequences.

Israel has always snubbed Resolution 194, which guarantees the Palestinians expelled in 1948 from the territory Israel conquered the right to return or to compensation.

It has also ignored rulings condemning its forceful acquisition of territory and the annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the continuing and expanding settlement policy in the West Bank, among others.