Mideast situation/Lebanon – Letter from Lebanon

GENERAL ASSEMBLY SECURITY COUNCIL

Fifty-third session Fifty-fourth year

Agenda item 40

THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Letter dated 4 January 1999 from the Chargé d'affaires a.i.

of the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations

addressed to the Secretary-General

On instructions from my Government and further to my recent letter concerning the Israeli attack on the area around the village of Janta in which seven civilians, all of them members of the same family, were killed on 22 December 1998 (A/53/768-S/1998/1215), I have to communicate to you hereunder particulars of a fresh Israeli act of aggression in the same area in which a number of civilians were wounded.

At 12.40 p.m. on Sunday, 3 January 1999, Israeli military aircraft carried out a two-wave attack on an area near the village of Nahlé in which they fired eight air-to- surface missiles that hit some buildings.  Seven civilians were wounded, most of them women and children, and the residents of the targeted area were left in a state of alarm and anxiety.

This fresh act of aggression illustrates yet again Israel's contempt for international law, the safety of defenceless civilians and human rights.

The Lebanese Government, again expressing its condemnation and deprecation of this open assault on its sovereignty and on its citizens, urges the international community, as represented by the Security Council, to take the necessary steps to halt Israeli attacks on Lebanon and bring an end to the intimidation of its innocent inhabitants by the aggressor and occupier.

I should be grateful if you would have this letter circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda item 40, and of the Security Council.

(Signed)  Hassan Kassem NAJEM  

Chargé d'affaires a.i.

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