PARIS: France’s President Emmanuel Macron said he urged Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to “refrain from a ground offensive” in Lebanon in their first phone call since last summer.
“I called on the Israeli prime minister to preserve Lebanon’s territorial integrity and to refrain from a ground offensive,” Macron said on X, after Israeli ground forces pushed into several border towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon, a former French protectorate, was drawn into the Middle East war on Monday when the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the death of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes at the weekend.
The French president said he also spoke to Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, stressing the need for Hezbollah “to immediately cease its attacks against Israel and beyond.”
Relations between Macron and Netanyahu soured last summer after the French leader declared France’s intention to recognize Palestinian statehood.
France formally recognized a Palestinian state in late September, before a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip the following month.
In a letter sent in mid-August, Netanyahu had complained the French plan to recognize a Palestinian state was fueling antisemitism — to which Macron responded that the fight against antisemitism should “not be weaponized.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in early September that his government would not agree to Macron visiting so long as Paris planned to recognize a Palestinian state.
Macron urges Netanyahu to avoid ground offensive in Lebanon
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Macron urges Netanyahu to avoid ground offensive in Lebanon
- “I called on the Israeli prime minister to preserve Lebanon’s territorial integrity and to refrain from a ground offensive,” Macron said
- Macron said he also spoke to Aoun and Salam, stressing the need for Hezbollah “to immediately cease its attacks”
Two Syrian soldiers injured during mine-clearing in Latakia
- Engineering units were removing mines and unexploded ordnance from agricultural land and forested areas in the village of Nahshaba
- Mines and unexploded ordnance left by the former Bashar Assad regime continue to pose a significant hazard to civilians in various parts of Syria
LONDON: Two members of the Syrian army engineering unit were injured on Tuesday when an anti-personnel mine detonated during a clearance operation in Latakia countryside, near the Mediterranean.
Engineering units were removing mines and unexploded ordnance from agricultural land and forested areas in the village of Nahshaba, located in the Jabal Al-Akrad region, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
The operation is part of a nationwide effort to secure areas affected by the country’s civil war, which lasted from 2011 to 2024, and to allow residents to return to their villages. Mines and unexploded ordnance left by the former Bashar Assad regime continue to pose a significant hazard to civilians in various parts of the Syrian Arab Republic, the SANA added.
Last week, two members of the Syrian Internal Security Forces were killed, and three were injured by a landmine in Al-Sanamayn, a city in the Daraa province of southern Syria.
