Lebanon, 4 soldiers killed in Beirut on the day of the Paris aid conference
President Macron also aims for 500 million to finance 6,000 more soldiers in the Beirut Forces
ROME – The conference for humanitarian support to Lebanon has opened in Paris, which has been suffering from an offensive by the Israeli army for weeks. French President Emmanuel Macron aims to raise 500 million euros and finance the recruitment of 6,000 additional soldiers for the regular army, on the day news broke that four Lebanese soldiers were killed in an Israeli raid in Beirut. An army officer also died in the attack, part of sixteen other raids that focused on the southern neighborhoods of the capital. Six buildings were completely razed to the ground, local media reported.
The killing of Lebanese soldiers prompted a reaction from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who, on the phone with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, expressed “concern” and urged Tel Aviv to “take every measure to ensure the safety of the Lebanese Armed Forces as well as the “Unifil blue helmets”, who have already been hit by several attacks.
MACRON ANNOUNCES 100 MILLION EUROS OF AID AND CALLS FOR A CEASE FIRE FIRE
In Paris, meanwhile, Macron promised the Beirut authorities support of 100 million euros. The meeting, in the intentions of the Head of the Elysée, was also meant to be a way to trigger a fruitful diplomatic process that could lead to peace, but the absence of representatives of the parties makes this objective distant. “France is a friend of Lebanon” Macron assured, adding: “The war must end immediately”. “All displaced people – he continued – must be able to return to their homes”, in reference to the hundreds of thousands of families – over a million people, according to the UN – forced to abandon homes and cities due to Israel’s intense attacks. The head of the Elysée Palace then encouraged full compliance with the Security Council resolution 1701 of 2006, which requires the withdrawal of the Israeli army from southern Lebanon as well as the disarmament of the militias of the Shiite political party Hezbollah.
The outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Majib Mikati took the opportunity of the international summit to declare: “We could have avoided all this carnage if Israel had accepted the Franco-American ceasefire proposal”. The Lebanese press reports that a spokesman for the Lebanese Armed Forces, General Youssef Haddad, announced the intention to recruit 1,500 men to strengthen the ranks of the army, and for this reason he urged the international community to invest in providing “salaries and training”.
At the Paris summit, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, expressed “concern for the safety of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line”, the border that divides Lebanon from Israel. About fifty deaths on the Israeli side since October 2023, and over 2,500 on the Lebanese side.
ISRAEL RAIDS AND DIRECT CLASHES WITH HEZBOLLAH FORCES
However, the fighting does not stop: last night, the Israeli air force returned to strike the neighborhoods south of Beirut in 17 separate raids, which according to international media would have occurred without warning the population, and razed six buildings to the ground. Yesterday, media attention focused on Tyre, a UNESCO World Heritage city, the scene of unprecedented raids that forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate, after the Tel Aviv army raised the alert. In Teffahta, a village about thirty kilometers north of the port city, according to the BBC, an Israeli missile hit a house, killing 19 members of the same family. This morning Hezbollah confirmed missiles against the Israeli city of Safed, near the border, and against the military base of Zvulun for the second consecutive day. “Violent clashes” were also recorded between Israeli troops and those of Hezbollah near Rab El Thalathine, in the south. Lebanese fighters are busy repelling the advance of the Israeli infantry, which through its air force has hit, further north, the towns of Taybe, Khiam and Nabatieh.