Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirmed on Sunday that the government had drawn up a contingency plan for the next three months should there be a war in Lebanon.
“We maintain self-control, and we call on Israel to stop its continuous provocations in the South,” he said in an interview with Al Jazeera. “We don’t want war, and we won’t try to start one,” Mikati added, reiterating Lebanon’s commitment to “international legality and the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.”
Mikati also expressed the hope that “negotiations could lead to a ceasefire in southern Lebanon.” “What matters to me is that Lebanon remains safe from war,” he insisted. “We are looking for stability.”
When asked about the Riyadh Arab-Islamic summit held on Saturday to stress the importance of ending the war in Gaza, Mikati said that the results were “better” than he had expected. In this context, he called on Arab countries, “especially those with relations with Israel, to press for an end to provocations in South Lebanon.”
Mikati also considered that “there should be no bloodshed whatsoever due to brutality and massacres in Gaza, and no one can bear the massacres happening there.” He called on international institutions in Gaza to protect Al-Shifa Hospital and those inside it, “because it is under siege, and it is a war crime.”
