Lebanon Teeters on the Edge of Chaos as Diplomatic Efforts Struggle to Contain Escalating Tensions with Israel

Since October 7, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel from this Palestinian territory, there has been almost daily fighting along Lebanon’s southern border, mostly between Israel and Hamas’s ally Hezbollah.

“Lebanon doesn’t need a war, that’s the least we can say,” said Lecornu while visiting French peacekeepers with the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL.

He added that such a war “could have a major escalatory effect on the entire region.”

As Lecorn was visiting Lebanon, Israel’s military said it launched a large-scale offensive on Thursday against Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, while the Iran-backed militant group said it attacked 19 Israeli positions at once.

According to the AFP news agency, 66 people were killed in cross-border shootings on the Lebanese side – 48 of them Hezbollah fighters, as well as seven civilians, one of them a Reuters journalist.

Nine people were killed on the Israeli side, eight soldiers and one civilian, the army said.

The Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah targets Israeli observation posts and military positions near the border.

UNIFIL acts as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel, which are still formally at war, and has about 10,000 soldiers. peacekeeping forces, of which about 700 are French.

Israel says its goal in the Gaza Strip is to destroy Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks, the deadliest in the country’s history, in which officials said the militants killed 1,400. people and kidnapped another 242.

Since then, it has bombarded the Hamas-run Gaza Strip incessantly. The Hamas-run Health Ministry says the bombing killed more than 9,000 people. people’s lives.

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