France blames Hezbollah for peacekeeper’s death in Lebanon
Paris, FRANCE—A French soldier was killed and three others wounded in an ambush on Saturday on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon that French President Emmanuel Macron blamed on Hezbollah, an accusation the group has denied.
The attack follows an agreement between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday for a 10-day ceasefire to negotiate an end to six weeks of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group.
“Everything points to Hezbollah being responsible for this attack,” Macron said on X, urging Lebanese authorities to arrest the perpetrators.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack in a statement and said an initial assessment by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) found it was carried out by the Iranian-backed group.
But Hezbollah—which is strongly opposed to the planned talks with Israel—denied involvement in the attack that killed the French peacekeeper, identified as Staff Sgt. Florian Montorio.
Hezbollah denies role
“Hezbollah denies any connection to the incident that occurred with Unifil forces in the Ghandouriyeh-Bint Jbeil area,” it said in a statement.
The group urged “caution in making judgments and assigning responsibilities” pending the results of the Lebanese army’s investigation into the incident.
The fighting in Lebanon—one of the fronts in the Middle East war—has seen Unifil deployed there repeatedly targeted, by both Israeli and Hezbollah forces.
Montorio was caught in an “ambush” as his unit headed to a Unifil outpost cut off by fighting and he died from a “direct gunshot,” France’s armed forces minister Catherine Vautrin said on X.
He is the second French soldier to die since the start of the war in the Middle East, after an Iranian-designed drone killed Arnaud Frion last month in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
Possible ‘war crimes’
His commanding officer, Col. Jeremy Akil, paid tribute to “an exceptional soldier” who had served in various conflict zones since enlisting in 2007.
The 40-year-old father of two daughters was “at the end of his military career” and was due to return to civilian life within months, Akil added.
His death came as Lebanon is eyeing the first direct negotiations with Israel in decades, a move Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun insisted was not a “concession” in an apparent rebuttal of Hezbollah criticism.
But senior Hezbollah official Mahmud Qamati on Saturday said that his group was “not concerned with the negotiations being conducted by the state,” saying they were “a failure, weak, defeated… and submissive negotiations.”
Aoun condemned the attack and pledged to bring those responsible to justice, while Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said he had ordered an investigation.
