“Substantial contributions”. The international conference on Lebanon in Paris made it possible to raise more than 800 million dollars in humanitarian aid and 200 million in aid for the Lebanese army, announced the head of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot on Thursday.
“We responded to the appeal launched by the United Nations by announcing substantial contributions, 800 million dollars to which are added significant contributions in kind,” he declared, i.e. double the amount which had been requested, at the beginning of October, by the United Nations for displaced people.
The international community “was up to the challenge,” said the minister, specifying that the United States was among the main contributors with an envelope of 300 million dollars. President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday morning that France’s participation was one hundred million euros ($108 million). “Fifteen years of growth in Lebanon have been erased in this dramatic context” of war between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah Islamist movement, he lamented.
“The urgency of a diplomatic solution”
The minister also underlined that the participants had “agreed on the urgency of a diplomatic solution, making it possible to ensure lasting security for the population in Israel and in Lebanon”. This solution requires the full implementation of Resolution 1701, “with a cessation of hostilities on both sides of the border,” he said.
It is also a question of “massively” deploying the Lebanese armed forces in the south of the country, “of strengthening the capacity of UNIFIL (the United Nations Interim Force deployed in the south of Lebanon) and of implementing its mandate”. Jean-Noël Barrot also urged Lebanese leaders to take their responsibilities by urgently electing a president while the vacancy has lasted for almost two years.
“It is inconceivable to leave Lebanon today without a president who can bring it together and represent it, who can be the face and the voice” of the country, he said. “This is the condition for preserving the very existence of the Lebanese State.”
