BEIRUT: France’s Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne on Thursday expressed appreciation for Lebanon’s “self-restraint in this difficult period” in the region.
Sejourne reiterated that France “supports Lebanon amid the concerning situation.”
He stressed that France was keen on extending UNIFIL’s mandate during the UN Security Council’s session at the end of this month for another 12 months.
Sejourne arrived in Beirut for a short visit to Lebanon that lasted several hours.
His trip to the region includes Egypt, Jordan, and Israel.
In his meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Sejourne also said he hopes for continued non-escalation from Lebanon.
“We can only be silent, patient, and praying in this difficult period,” Mikati said following the meeting
Sejourne’s visit came a day after US mediator Amos Hochstein’s visit to Lebanon and a day before the expected visit of the Egyptian foreign minister to Beirut.
The visits are part of the intense efforts aiming to reach a diplomatic solution that would achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and de-escalate the situation on the southern front between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The French foreign minister also met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Following the meeting, he affirmed that his message “reiterates France’s support to Lebanon amid the concerning regional situation.”
He said: “What matters to us is working on de-escalating the situation. This message was addressed to Lebanese authorities and will also be addressed to other countries in the region, hoping things will calm down during these highly sensitive times.”
He added: “Our message is one of support, solidarity and responsibility. France will always support Lebanon in achieving peace in the region. Above all, a ceasefire in Gaza is an essential and indispensable element if we are to discuss peace in the region.”
According to his media office, Berri affirmed “Lebanon’s commitment to the rules of engagement and its right to self-defense against the Israeli aggression.”
Israel “targets civilians, media personalities and paramedics, in addition to using internationally forbidden weapons, including phosphorus bombs, to target agricultural fields and forests,” Berri said.
He emphasized Lebanon’s dedication to “the necessity to extend UNIFIL’s mandate in southern Lebanon for a new term under the French proposal and UN Resolution 1701.”
Sejourne also met with Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.
According to statements by people he had met, US mediator Hochstein had warned the Lebanese officials during his visits on Wednesday against “the risks of a full-scale war.”
He added that “the current Doha negotiations are a final and precious opportunity that can be used to stop the war in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.”
The region is still waiting for the Iranian response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month, in addition to Hezbollah’s response to the killing of its senior military commander Fouad Shukur, in Beirut’s southern suburbs hours before Haniyeh’s death.
Hezbollah said in a statement on Thursday that “it will unwaveringly continue to defend Lebanon and its people with courage and full strength, employing all its capabilities and surprises.”
In commemoration of what Hezbollah calls the “July 2006 War Victory,” the group reaffirmed “its commitment to resistance and its unwavering support for the Palestinian people.”
Hezbollah on Thursday targeted the Shamir settlement for the first time with Katyusha rockets.
The group said that the attack was in response to “the Israeli enemy’s hostilities against Jdeidet Marjayoun Wednesday night, which caused casualties.”
According to the updated toll of the Health Ministry’s emergency operations center, the unprecedented Israeli attack on the Jdeidet Marjayoun village “killed one person and severely injured another, who suffered a cardiac arrest.”
The center added that “upon the patient’s arrival to the hospital, he underwent a very critical surgery following the CPR performed by the medical staff.”
Around eight people — including a three-year-old boy — were also injured as a result of the attack.
The child underwent surgery in the Marjayoun Governmental Hospital.
He was subsequently transferred to the Saint George Hospital University Medical Center in Beirut due to his critical condition.
His father, whose condition was also critical, was transferred to the same hospital.
Three other people were moderately injured, while two women and a Syrian national were treated in the hospital.
Israeli artillery on Thursday targeted the town of Khiam with internationally banned phosphorus bombs, as well as the town of Qabrikha, resulting in the injury of two members of the Islamic Risala Scout Association in Khiam, as well as injuring a 10-year-old child in Qabrikha.
The Israeli shelling also reached the outskirts of the towns of Naqoura and Deir Mimas, which were targeted with incendiary shells.
Hezbollah, according to its statements on Thursday, “targeted the Ma’ayan Baruch site with artillery shells” and “a positioning point for Israeli soldiers at the Al-Malikiyah site.”
It also launched “an air attack with a squadron of assault drones on the Khirbet Ma'ar site, targeting the positions of enemy officers and soldiers.”
Hezbollah mourned two of its members: Mohammed Ali Jihad Badr Al-Din, aged 30, from the town of Harouf in southern Lebanon, and Hussein Yassin Sheito, aged 29, from the town of At Tiri in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military, in anticipation of the visit of the US envoy Hochstein to Lebanon, used bunker-busting bombs for the first time in Kfarkela.
It also announced the crashing of an assault drone in an open area near Arab Al-Aramshe on the border with Lebanon without causing any injuries.
Israeli media reported that a settler was injured in Kiryat Shmona.
French foreign minister in Beirut applauds Lebanon’s ‘self-restraint in difficult period’
https://arab.news/4xtc5
French foreign minister in Beirut applauds Lebanon’s ‘self-restraint in difficult period’
- PM Mikati: ‘We must now practice silence, patience, and prayer’
- Incendiary phosphorous shells used on southern Lebanese towns
Iraq drone attacks wound 5 Kurdish security personnel
IRBIL: Five Iraqi Kurdish security personnel were wounded in two drone attacks in northern Iraq in less than 48 hours, authorities in the autonomous Kurdistan region said on Tuesday.
Authorities blamed a “terrorist group” for the separate attacks in a region that has seen repeated clashes between Turkish forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
“A terrorist group launched two separate drone attacks yesterday (Monday) and this morning targeting peshmerga bases” in Dohuk province, the region’s security council said. The attacks wounded five peshmerga, it added.
Kamran Othman of the US-based Community Peacemakers Teams, who monitor Turkish operations in Iraqi Kurdistan, confirmed the attacks but was unable to identify the perpetrators.
He added that the peshmerga were establishing a new post in a “sensitive area” that has long been the site of tension between the PKK and Turkish forces. There was no immediate claim for the attacks, which came weeks after the PKK announced a ceasefire with Turkiye in response to their jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan’s historic call to the group to dissolve and disarm.
Blacklisted as a “terrorist group” by the EU and the US, the PKK has fought the Turkish state for most of the past four decades.
US hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since mid-March
- Since March 15, “USCENTCOM strikes have hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders...,” Parnell said
- CENTCOM on Sunday had put the figure at more than 800 targets
WASHINGTON: US forces have struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since Washington launched the latest round of its air campaign against the Houthi militants in mid-March, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The Houthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in late 2023 and the United States responded with strikes against them starting early the following year.
Since March 15, “USCENTCOM strikes have hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders... and degrading their capabilities,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement, referring to the military command responsible for the Middle East.
CENTCOM on Sunday had put the figure at more than 800 targets hit since mid-March, saying hundreds of Houthi fighters had been killed as a result.
Hours after that announcement, Houthi-controlled media said US strikes had hit a migrant detention center in the city of Saada, killing at least 68 people, while a United Nations spokesperson later said preliminary information indicated that those killed were migrants.
A US defense official said the military is looking into reports of civilian casualties resulting from its strikes in Yemen.
Attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal — a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of the world’s shipping traffic.
The militants say they are targeting shipping in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s military after a shock Hamas attack in October 2023.
Iran fire contained after blast at key port; 70 killed
TEHRAN: Firefighters have brought under control a blaze at Iran’s main port, following a deadly explosion blamed on negligence, authorities said.
The explosion, heard dozens of kilometers away, hit a dock at the southern port of Shahid Rajaee on Saturday.
At least 70 people were killed and more than 1,000 others suffered injuries in the blast and ensuing fire, which also caused extensive damage, state media reported.
Red Crescent official Mokhtar Salahshour told the channel that the fire had been “contained” and a clean-up was underway.
State television aired live footage on Tuesday showing thick smoke rising from stacked containers.
Iran’s ILNA news agency quoted Hossein Zafari, spokesman for the country’s crisis management organization, as saying the situation had improved significantly since Monday.
However, “the operation and complete extinguishing process may take around 15 to 20 days,” the agency reported.
Iran’s customs authority said port operations had returned to normal, according to the IRNA news agency.
The port of Shahid Rajaee lies near the major coastal city of Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil output passes.
Hormozgan provincial governor Mohammad Ashouri ruled out sabotage.
“The set of hypotheses and investigations carried out during the process indicated that the sabotage theory lacks basis or relevance,” he told state television.
The port’s customs office said the blast may have started in a depot storing hazardous and chemical materials.
Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said there were “shortcomings, including noncompliance with safety precautions and negligence.”
Gaza’s vital community kitchens may soon shut, halt free meals
- Malnutrition cases rising, hitting children, pregnant women as critical lifeline faces threat
CAIRO/GAZA/GENEVA: It took five hours of queuing at a community kitchen in Gaza’s Nuseirat district for displaced grandmother Um Mohammad Al-Talalqa to get one meal to feed her hungry children and grandchildren.
But finding food may be about to get even tougher: Gaza’s community kitchens — lifelines for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians after 18 months of war — may soon have no more meals to provide.
Multiple aid groups said that dozens of local community kitchens risk closing down, potentially within days, unless aid is allowed into Gaza, removing the last consistent source of meals for most of the 2.3 million population.
“We are suffering from famine, real famine,” said Talalqa, whose house in the Gaza town of Mughraqa was destroyed by Israel. “I have not eaten anything since this morning.”
At the Al-Salam Oriental Food community kitchen in Gaza City, Salah Abu Haseera offers what he fears could be one of the last meals for the 20,000 people he and his colleagues serve daily.
“We face huge challenges in keeping going. We may go out of operation within a week, or maybe less,” Abu Haseera told Reuters by phone from Gaza.
Since March 2, Israel has completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip, and food stockpiled during a ceasefire at the start of the year has all but run out. It is the longest such closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced.
“The community kitchens, which the population in Gaza are relying more on, because there are no other ways to get food, are at a very big risk to shut down,” Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said.
About 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified across Gaza, including 1,600 cases of severe acute malnutrition, since the start of 2025, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 60,000 children were now showing symptoms of malnutrition.
“We are seeing pediatric cases with moderate or severe acute malnutrition, and we are seeing also pregnant, lactating women that have difficulties breastfeeding; they themselves are malnourished or have a very insufficient calorie intake,” Julie Faucon, Medical Coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, said.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said famine is no longer a looming threat and is becoming a reality.
Fifty-two people have died due to hunger and malnutrition, including 50 children, it added.
Abu Haseera said food is being sold at “fictional prices.” Prices have risen 1,400 percent compared to during the ceasefire, the World Food Programme said, adding that its stocks were now depleted.
Israel has previously denied that Gaza is facing a hunger crisis and says there is still enough aid to sustain the enclave’s population, but it has not made clear when and how aid will be resumed.
Arab League chief says Baghdad summit will bolster Arab solidarity, address Gaza crisis
- Ahmed Aboul-Gheit met with crown prince of Kuwait at Bayan Palace
LONDON: Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah received Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, the secretary-general of the Arab League, at Bayan Palace.
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya, permanent representative of the Arab League, Talal Al-Mutairi, and other senior officials, attended the meeting.
Aboul-Gheit is visiting Kuwait, where he delivered a lecture at the Saud Al-Nasser Al-Sabah Kuwait Diplomatic Institute on Tuesday about the challenges of maintaining stability in the Arab region.
He stressed the significance of the upcoming Arab League summit in Baghdad next month to address challenges in the region, most importantly the Israeli war in Gaza, the KUNA agency reported.
He said that the Baghdad summit would be a platform to strengthen Arab solidarity and to address development in Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. He said assistant secretary-general Hossam Zaki would visit Baghdad to assess the arrangements for the Arab League summit, KUNA reported.
Aboul-Gheit said the Arab League is pursuing diplomatic efforts to promote the two-state solution, an issue expected to be discussed at a conference at the UN in June as part of a Saudi-French initiative aimed at drumming up support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
