Paris:
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday called an Israeli air strike on Lebanon “unacceptable”, saying it was a “violation of the ceasefire” agreed in November.
Such attacks “play into the hands of Hezbollah,” Macron told reporters after a meeting with new Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
Israel made good on its threat to strike Beirut after rockets were fired towards its territory, rattling an already fragile truce in Lebanon that had largely ended more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah.
Macron said that he would discuss the attack with US President Donald Trump “in the coming hours” and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within two days.
“There is no activity that justifies such strikes,” Macron said. “It is an absolute necessity that the framework that we defined, and that was agreed to by Lebanon and Israel, is duly respected. Today it was unilaterally not respected by Israel.”
Israel had provided no information or evidence of any action that could justify the attack, Macron added.
Aoun, speaking alongside Macron, denounced “any odious attempts to pull Lebanon back into a storm of violence”.
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