President Joseph Aoun strongly denounced the Israeli aircraft spraying toxic pesticides over fields and orchards in a number of southern villages adjacent to the border. He considered that this aggressive act “constitutes a blatant violation of Lebanese sovereignty, an environmental and health crime against Lebanese citizens and their land, and represents a continuation of the repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon and its people.”
President Aoun stressed that these dangerous actions, which target agricultural lands and citizens’ livelihoods and threaten their health and environment, require the international community and relevant UN organizations to carry out their duties to stop these attacks and provide the necessary protection for Lebanese sovereignty and civilians.
In this context, the President of the Republic asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates to prepare a complete file supported by documents, in coordination with the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment and Public Health, with the aim of taking all necessary legal and diplomatic measures to confront this attack, and to submit reports to the relevant international bodies.
This presidential position comes against the backdrop of increasing complaints by residents of the southern border villages about environmental and agricultural damage resulting from the spraying of chemicals by Israeli aircraft, which, according to local reports, caused the destruction of large areas of crops and increased health concerns among the population, especially among farmers and children.
These actions are part of a series of repeated attacks targeting the southern border areas, amid official warnings about their long-term environmental impacts and their repercussions on food security and livelihoods in these areas.
