UNITED NATIONS: US President Joe Biden asked world leaders Tuesday to prevent “full-scale war” over Lebanon, as clashes escalated between the Zionist entity and Hezbollah, prompting the UN chief to warn of a situation “on the brink”. The UN General Assembly, the high point of the diplomatic calendar, comes as Lebanese authorities said Zionist strikes killed 558 people – 50 of them children.

Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said the Zionist entity’s war in the Gaza Strip was a genocide as he addressed world leaders. “The blatant aggression that befalls the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip today is the most barbaric, heinous and extensive aggression,” he said, calling the conflict “a crime of genocide”.

“Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest. Even though the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” Biden said in his farewell address to the global body. “In fact, it remains the only path to lasting security to allow the residents from both countries to return to their homes on the border safely,” Biden said.

Biden also pushed again for an elusive ceasefire between the Zionist entity and Hamas, telling the global body it was time to “end this war”.

UN Security Council member France called for an emergency meeting on the crisis, and the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warned “we are almost in a full-fledged war”. “We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran — which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas — condemned the “senseless and incomprehensible” inaction by the UN against the Zionist entity, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the Zionist entity of dragging the entire region “into war”. “Not only children but also the UN system is dying in Gaza,” Erdogan said.

“The truth, the values that the West claims to defend are dying ... I ask openly: Hey human rights organizations, aren’t those in Gaza and West Bank human beings?” Erdogan criticized the UN Security Council for failing to order a halt to the fighting, and repeatedly said “the world is bigger than five”, alluding to the body’s five permanent members.

“UN Security Council, what are you waiting for to prevent the genocide in Gaza and to say ‘stop’ to this cruelty, this barbarism?” he asked. An outspoken critic of the Zionist offensive in Gaza, Erdogan urged the international community to stop Zionist leader Benjamin “Netanyahu and his murder network”, comparing the prime minister to Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler.

“Just as Hitler was stopped by the alliance of humanity 70 years ago, Netanyahu and his murder network must be stopped by the ‘alliance of humanity,’” he said. On the latest wave of deadly Zionist strikes on Lebanon, the Turkish leader said: “What more are you waiting for to stop the massacre network that endangers also the lives of its own citizens along with the Palestinian people and drags the entire region into war for the sake of its political prospects?”

At the rostrum, Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday ruled out the forced displacement by the Zionist entity of Palestinians to his country, which he said would be a “war crime”. “The idea of Jordan as an alternative homeland (for Palestinians)... will never happen,” he said.

The United States, the Zionist entity’s closest ally, has opposed a ground invasion into Lebanon. A senior official said ahead of Biden’s speech that the United States would bring “concrete” ideas for de-escalation to the UN. It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon as the efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, which the Zionist entity has relentlessly pounded since October 2023, have come to nothing.

Guterres cautioned against “the possibility of transforming Lebanon (into) another Gaza,” calling the situation in the embattled Palestinian territory a “non-stop nightmare”. The Zionist ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon hit back at the UN chief, calling the General Assembly debate an “annual charade of hypocrisy”. “When the UN Secretary General speaks about the release of our hostages, the UN assembly is silent, but when he speaks about the suffering in Gaza, he receives thunderous applause,” Danon said.

Since last year’s annual gathering, when Sudan’s civil war and Russia’s Ukraine invasion dominated, the world has faced an explosion of crises. Despite lofty speeches, it was uncertain what the grand diplomatic gathering can achieve for the millions mired in conflict, poverty and climate crisis globally.

With Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expected to address the General Assembly this week, there could be combustible moments. Abbas took his seat alongside the Palestinian delegation, placed in alphabetical order in the General Assembly for the first time after the delegation received upgraded privileges in May.

Ukraine was also on the agenda Tuesday when President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a UN Security Council meeting on the Russian invasion. Biden said that Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s war has failed at its core aim. He set out to destroy Ukraine, but Ukraine is still free.” – Agencies