EU’s Borrell says Lebanon-Israel escalation nearing ‘full-fledged war’

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that the escalating clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah threaten to plunge the Middle East into all-out war.

“I can say we are almost in a full-fledged war,” Borrell said ahead of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

“We’re seeing more military strikes, more damage, more collateral damage, more victims,” he added as Lebanese authorities said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 492 people on Monday, including 35 children.

The strikes marked the deadliest day of cross-border violence since the Gaza war began.

Israel said it killed a “large number” of Hezbollah militants when it hit about 1,300 sites in southern and eastern Lebanon, including a “targeted strike” in Beirut.

“Everybody has to put all their capacity to stop this,” Borrell said, pressing for a solution in New York.

On Gaza, he said “despite all the diplomatic capacity that we have deployed, nothing has been able to stop the war,” accusing both sides of “procrastinating.”