An interview with the aim of avoiding escalation.
The head of French diplomacy Stéphane Séjourné, visiting Lebanon on Tuesday, warned Beirut that Israel could trigger a war against the country, the Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.
At the end of a tour of the Middle East, which notably took him to Israel, the French minister met the main Lebanese leaders in Beirut.
“He warned us that the Israelis could start a war (…) to bring home” the tens of thousands of residents evacuated from areas near the border with Lebanon, declared Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.
Also read: Israel-Hezbollah: a war on the Lebanese border ever closer?
Since the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, which sparked the war in Gaza, Lebanese Hezbollah, very established in the south of the country, has been bombarding Israeli army positions on the border daily, in support of Palestinian Islamist movement.
Israel responds by bombing targets in southern Lebanon.
Israeli civilians displaced
In nearly four months, 226 people, the majority Hezbollah fighters, have been killed in southern Lebanon according to an AFP count.
On the Israeli side, 15 people were killed, according to the army.
Tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border have had to abandon their homes.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told his French counterpart that “time is running out to find a diplomatic solution” in southern Lebanon.
“Israel will act militarily to return citizens evacuated from their homes” in the north of the country if no other solution is possible, he added.
Israel previously invaded Lebanon in a previous war against Hezbollah in 2006.
Beirut wants to find an agreement with Israel
According to the Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beirut assured Paris that it “does not want a war”.
“We want an agreement on the border through the UN, the French and the Americans,” he said.
Several Western countries are trying to find an operational solution to stop border violence, in particular through a settlement of the border dispute between Israel and Lebanon.
Abdallah Bou Habib assured that Lebanon wanted “full implementation of UN resolution” 1701.
This resolution, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, stipulates that only the Lebanese army and peacekeepers be deployed in the south of the country.
Read alsoRisk of an Israel-Lebanon conflagration: resolution 1701, an unrealistic hobbyhorse of the Hebrew State
“Resolution 1701 remains the reference framework for preserving peace,” added French diplomacy, according to which “the Lebanese actors welcomed the firm words of the Minister in Israel concerning France's attachment to the stability of Lebanon, and the risk that Israeli intervention would pose.”
Tel Aviv, for its part, is demanding that pro-Iranian Hezbollah move away from the common border.