Israeli strike on Lebanon 'unacceptable' ceasefire violation, Macron says
World
Israel on Friday conducted drone strikes on a southern Beirut suburb.
BEIRUT (Agencies) - Israel on Friday conducted drone strikes on a southern Beirut suburb, according to Lebanese official media, shortly after the Israeli military issued an evacuation order. The strike occurred as Lebanese President Joseph Aoun met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and is the first such attack since a November ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.
Official media in Lebanon reported an air strike Friday on south Beirut following an Israeli military warning, the first such move since a November ceasefire that has been seriously disrupted over the past week.
"Israeli warplanes struck the Hadath neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburbs," the National News Agency said, referring to a densely populated area home to residential buildings and schools, after unclaimed rocket fire from Lebanon towards Israel earlier in the day.
Shortly before the strike, Israel's army issued an evacuation order to residents of Hadath in Beirut's southern suburbs. The military told them to leave the area around "Hezbollah facilities" immediately.
"Anyone located in the building marked in red as shown on the map, and the surrounding buildings... are near Hezbollah facilities... you must immediately evacuate these buildings", military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that included a map showing the building.
The order came as Lebanese President Joseph Aoun began talks in Paris on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss economic reforms and efforts to stabilise the country.
Macron said Friday's strikes on Beirut were "unacceptable" and a violation of the ceasefire after the meeting with Aoun.
Speaking at a joint press conference alongside Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun, Macron said the renewed tensions “mark a turning point".
“Today’s strikes and the failure to respect the ceasefire are unilateral actions that betray a given promise and play into Hezbollah’s hands,” he said.
He said he will speak with US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the coming hours over the situation in Lebanon.
“I call on Lebanon’s friends to act quickly to stop the deterioration and help Lebanon implement international resolutions,” Aoun added.
Making his first trip to a Western nation, Aoun was seeking to shore up support from Paris after the new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, succeeded in putting together a government after two years of stalemate.
Under a ceasefire deal brokered by France and the United States in November, armed group Hezbollah was to remove its weapons from southern Lebanon, Israeli ground forces were to withdraw, and the Lebanese army was to deploy in the area. Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel have all accused each other of violating the accords.
“It seems to us today that we have to move forward on the possibility of a complete respect of the ceasefire,” a French presidency official told reporters ahead of the visit, whose country, along with the US, is a guarantor of the accord.
The official said Paris was in contact with President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and his deputy Morgan Ortagus on the issue.
ISRAEL STRIKES HADATH NEIGHBOURHOOD
The Israeli military said on Friday it was striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, hours after missiles were fired from Lebanese territory into Israel.
In the Hadath neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburbs, residents were seen fleeing in panic, rushing to escape by car and on foot after Israel issued the evacuation order, witnesses said.
A limited drone strike, which security sources said appeared to be a warning shot or designed to mark the building intended to be hit, struck a building roughly an hour later.
Israel bombarded Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon on Friday after intercepting a rocket fired from its northern neighbour, the Israeli military said, although Hezbollah denied involvement in the incident.
Israel had vowed a strong response to protect its security, in what amounted to a further blow to the shaky ceasefire deal between the sides that ended the year-long war, a spillover of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
A senior Hezbollah official denied in a statement that the group was involved in Friday's rocket launch, which followed a rocket salvo into northern Israel on March 22 for which the Iranian-backed group also denied responsibility.
Hezbollah said the incidents appeared to be part of what it called attempts to create pretexts for the continuation of Israeli military action in Lebanon.
