UK Denounces Israel Over Lebanon Expansion

(MENAFN) British Foreign Office Minister Hamish Falconer sounded the alarm Sunday over Israel's intensifying military footprint in Lebanon and its continued lockdown of one of Islam's holiest sites, issuing a rare dual rebuke that laid bare growing British unease over the region's spiraling crises.

Writing on X, the social media platform owned by US billionaire Elon Musk, Falconer said he was "Deeply concerned by Israel's announcement stating intention to expand its ground operations in Lebanon, where over 1m people have already been forcibly displaced."

The British minister issued a pointed warning to Tel Aviv, demanding: "Israel must avoid further exacerbation of the conflict and refrain from any action to seize Lebanese territory."

Israel has subjected Lebanon to sustained airstrikes and launched a ground offensive in the country's south following a cross-border assault by Hezbollah on March 2. The broader regional conflagration ignited on February 28, when US and Israeli forces launched a joint air campaign against Iran that has so far killed more than 1,340 people — among them then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran has since retaliated with drone and missile barrages targeting Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf states hosting American military assets, triggering casualties, infrastructure damage, and mounting disruption to global aviation and financial markets.

In a separate post, Falconer pivoted to a second flashpoint — the Israeli blockade of Al-Aqsa Mosque — invoking the language of fundamental rights: "The right to worship is a fundamental freedom."

Falconer also condemned the barring of a senior church official from one of Christianity's most sacred sites, stating that Israeli police "should not have blocked the Latin Patriarch from the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday."

Calling for an end to religious restrictions, the minister urged: "Israel must work with religious communities to facilitate worship in line with the status quo."

The closure of Al-Aqsa — Islam's third holiest site — has forced Palestinian worshippers in East Jerusalem to hold prayers in smaller mosques across the city. Calls had circulated urging the faithful to gather as near to the mosque as possible in a show of symbolic defiance.

Israel shuttered Al-Aqsa on February 28, citing security imperatives tied to the outbreak of its conflict with Iran — a justification Palestinian worshippers and Muslim-majority governments have overwhelmingly rejected as politically motivated. In an especially charged milestone, Israeli authorities barred Eid al-Fitr prayers from the site this year — the first such prohibition since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967.

Last Wednesday, the Israeli government extended its state of emergency through mid-April, leaving the mosque's reopening timeline uncertain. Despite sweeping condemnation from Arab and Muslim nations, Israeli authorities have shown no indication they intend to lift the closure.

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