Today, Friday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bouhabib delivered to the French ambassador to Lebanon Beirut’s response to the Paris initiative aimed at stopping the escalation between Hezbollah and Israel more than five months ago.
The National News Agency said that Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Abdullah Bouhabib, received French Ambassador Herve Magro, and delivered to him the official Lebanese response to the French initiative.
Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 7, Hezbollah opened a front from southern Lebanon on the second day in support of Gaza.
Details of the French initiative
The party specifically targets Israeli army positions, which respond by bombing Lebanese territory and carrying out strikes against Hezbollah and Hamas officials in Lebanon.
Recently, threats have escalated from Israeli officials to expand attacks on Lebanese territory unless Hezbollah fighters withdraw away from the border with northern Israel.
Last January, France presented Lebanon and Israel with an initiative to defuse the border escalation.
According to a French diplomatic source, the initiative relates to the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, which stipulates that armed deployment in southern Lebanon be limited to the Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Peacekeeping Force (UNIFIL).
The agency added, “The Lebanese response stated that the French initiative is an important step to achieve peace and security in southern Lebanon.”
It quoted Bouhabib as saying: “The (France) initiative contains many good and acceptable points, and there are points that need further research.”
The initiative stipulates the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and their allies from a distance of ten to 12 kilometers from the border and the cessation of Israeli air violations.
It also proposes the establishment of a Quartet committee including France, the United States, Israel and Lebanon to monitor the cessation of hostilities.
Bouhabib added: “It is important for us to reach some kind of agreement that gives the southern border complete and permanent stability.”
Since the start of the escalation, at least 322 people have been martyred in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters and at least 56 civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse count, and the mutual bombing has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
In Israel, ten soldiers and seven civilians were killed, according to the army.
Hezbollah bombs Israeli sites
Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced on Friday that it had targeted Israeli soldiers and army positions near the southern Lebanese border, causing “direct hits.”
The party said, in separate statements, that “the resistance targeted a gathering of Israeli enemy soldiers in the vicinity of the Birkat Risha site, with a Burkan missile, and they directly hit it.”
Hezbollah fighters also targeted a radar site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms with missile weapons, hitting it “directly.”
The party added that its fighters targeted “a gathering of enemy soldiers in the vicinity of the Ruwaisat al-Alam site, in the occupied Lebanese hills of Kafr Shuba, with missile weapons” and hit it “directly.”
He explained that he “targeted the Zionist enemy soldiers in the vicinity of Hadab Yarin, with missile weapons, and achieved a direct hit.”
On the other hand, the official Lebanese media agency reported that Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids on southern towns on Friday.
She explained that the Israeli raids included the complete destruction of a three-story house on the outskirts of the town of Alma al-Shaab, and the targeting of a house in the town of Kafr Kila.
The raids also targeted, according to the same source, the Naqoura area, the area between Al-Shaab and Naqoura, and the Labouneh-Naqoura area.
The agency stated that there was no immediate information about casualties as a result of these raids.
2024-03-15 19:23:32
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