French President Emmanuel Macron blamed— in so many words— Hezbollah for the death of a French soldier and the wounding of three others in a shooting incident in the village of Ghanduriyah in southern Lebanon today. The French soldiers are assigned to the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. Macron claimed in an X posting, that evidence suggests Hezbollah was responsible for the attack.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon blamed “non-state actors,” for the attack. According to the Times of Israel, the term “non-state actors” is code for Hezbollah. “This morning, a UNIFIL patrol clearing explosive ordnance along a road in the village of Ghanduriyah to re-establish links with isolated UNIFIL positions came under small-arms fire from non-state actors. Tragically, one peacekeeper succumbed to his injuries and three others were injured, two of them seriously,” the observer force said in a statement.
In a phone call with Macron, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun condemned the incident and vowed that Beirut “will not hesitate to pursue those involved and bring them to justice.”
Hezbollah denied any connection to the incident in a statement and called for caution before passing judgment on who was responsible. It expressed its astonishment at the positions that rushed to hurl accusations arbitrarily, at a time “when these parties are absent and no voice is heard from them when the Israeli enemy assaults UNIFIL forces.”
