France’s top diplomat in Lebanon in bid to stop escalation of Israel-Hezbollah conflict
Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne is visiting Lebanon today to push proposals to prevent further escalation and a potential war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
“The objective is to prevent a regional conflagration and avoid that the situation deteriorates even more on the border between Israel and Lebanon,” Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said at a news conference.
France has historical ties with Lebanon, and earlier this year, Sejourne delivered an initiative proposing Hezbollah’s elite unit pull back 10km (6 miles) from the Israeli border and Israel to halt strikes in southern Lebanon.
France has 700 soldiers based in southern Lebanon as part of the 10,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force.
French FM visits southern Lebanon amid fears of Israel-Hezbollah war
“If I look at the situation today, if there was not a war in Gaza, we could be talking about a war in southern Lebanon given the number of strikes and the impact on the area,” French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said after visiting the UN peacekeeping force in Naqoura, southern Lebanon.
“I will pass messages and make proposals to the authorities here to stabilise this zone and avoid a war.”
A house lies in ruins in the border area of Shebaa in southern Lebanon, following an Israeli attack on Saturday
Israel hits Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon
The Israeli army says it struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. The army update comes after the Iran-linked group said it fired dozens of missiles Saturday overnight at an Israeli settlement in northern Israel.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October, the two sides have been trading fire on a near-daily basis, displacing tens of thousands of people on both sides. More than 350 Lebanese and 22 Israelis have been killed in the border exchanges.
While these exchanges have largely remained confined to border areas, they have increased in scope and intensity.
French FM says there has been ‘a lot of progress’ in Lebanon talks
As we’ve been reporting, France’s Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne is in Lebanon for discussions with senior officials aimed at easing tensions between Hezbollah and Israel.
Earlier this year, Sejourne proposed Hezbollah’s elite unit pull back 10km (6 miles) from the Israeli border while Israel would halt strikes in southern Lebanon. The written proposal also looked at long-term border issues.
“If I look at the situation today, if there were not a war in Gaza, we could be talking about a war in southern Lebanon given the number of strikes and the impact on the area,” Sejourne said after speaking to UN peacekeeping force commanders.
Speaking after meeting the influential speaker of parliament Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, and the head of the Lebanese army Joseph Aoun, Sejourne said there had been “a lot of progress” over the French proposals.
Captain Hector Alonso Garcia of the Spanish UNIFIL battalion, the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, shows on a map the blue line, a UN-drawn boundary between Lebanon and Israel
