France has urged Israel and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah to avoid destabilising the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon – warning that broadening the Israel-Hamas war would plunge Lebanon "into an abyss". However Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday said an escalation of hostilities was "a realistic possibility".
In a speech, Nasrallah said that one of the biggest mistakes Israel is making now – in its war against Hamas in Gaza – is pursuing goals that it cannot achieve.
"For a whole month, Israel could not offer a single military achievement," Nasrallah said, adding that Israel can only get hostages back through negotiation.
Nasrallah blamed the conflict and high Palestinian civilian death toll entirely on the United States.
Calling the conflict in Gaza "decisive," the Hezbollah leader also said a further escalation on the Lebanese front "is a realistic possibility ... Total war is possible."
He also underlined that Hezbollah operations have been escalating day by day, forcing Israel to keep its forces near the Lebanese border instead of Gaza and the West Bank.
Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned Nasrallah that any mistake made by Israel's enemies in the north would bring "unimaginable loss" to Hezbollah.
If America wants to prevent a regional war, the agression on Gaza must stop pic.twitter.com/Mm9Jh9LpMt
— حسن نصر الله (@SH_NasrallahEng) November 3, 2023
French Defence Minister in Lebanon
Speaking to FranceInfo radio, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, UNIFIL must not be put in an "untenable situation in which it will not be able to carry out the mission that the United Nations has given it".
That message, he added, was being sent by France to various "actors" on both sides.
France has been seeking to use its historical relationship with Lebanon to defuse tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, but violence has spiked.
Some 700 French soldiers are part of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon established in 1978 following violence on the Israel-Lebanon border.
La stabilité du Liban est une priorité absolue pour la France.
— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) November 2, 2023
La FINUL joue un rôle déterminant pour maintenir cette stabilité grâce à son mandat d’observation et de déconfliction. pic.twitter.com/xMiiDRxufo
Lecornu was speaking after meeting the French troop contingent in Lebanon and ahead of the much-anticipated speech on Friday by Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.
He said all of Lebanon's leaders needed to understand the risk of going to war.
"The war here in Lebanon would plunge part of the Middle East into an abyss which we would have difficulty collectively to get back up from," Lecornu added.
In June, French President Emmanuel Macron asked former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to come up with a method to convince Lebanon's political elite to put rivalries aside and appoint a new head of state to carry out economic reforms and unlock vital foreign aid.
However, that has led nowhere.
"It's clear that in the difficulties we are experiencing, not having a contact person for over a year, now makes no sense. This weakens Lebanon even more," Lecornu said.
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces across the Israeli-Lebanese border since the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel went to war on 7 October, in the deadliest violence at the frontier since a 2006 war.
Second French helicopter carrier heads to Gaza
Meanwhile, France will send a second French helicopter carrier off the coast of Gaza as it works with Israeli and Egyptian authorities to find a way to provide medical assistance to people affected by the bombings in the besieged area.
Paris has already sent the Tonnerre carrier to the eastern Mediterranean on what President Emmanuel Macron described as a mission to support Gaza hospitals.
Egypt this week began admitting limited numbers of wounded across its Gaza border.
However, it is unclear what exactly the ships will do in the region as they are too small to work as field hospitals for the number of wounded coming from Gaza.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran on Friday said France condemned the attacks on UN sites following Israeli strikes on the Jabaliya refugee camp, the largest in the Gaza Strip.
DOCUMENT FRANCEINFO. Guerre entre Israël et le Hamas : on a pu embarquer à bord du "Tonnerre", le navire envoyé sur place par l'armée françaisehttps://t.co/vmcmHUIX8M
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) November 3, 2023
Lecornu said the helicopter carrier Dixmude would also now be heading to the region. "It is being equipped to be transformed into a hospital vessel," Lecornu said.
A French military source said the Tonnerre, which has about 60 beds and two operating blocs, could only be used temporarily and as back-up for a larger hospital on land.
When asked how practical it would be to bring people from land to sea, Lecornu said things were still in the planning stages and discussions were ongoing with Egyptian and Israeli authorities.
This comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Friday to press for more humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza, while Israeli troops tightened their encirclement of Gaza City.
Blinken is making his third trip to Israel since the 7 October Hamas attack. He will visit Tel Aviv and Amman in Jordan.
