A French soldier was killed and three others were wounded in an attack on UN peacekeepers on Saturday, President Emmanuel Macron announced, saying that the evidence suggested Hezbollah was responsible. The militant group has denied involvement.
Macron named the soldier as Florian Montorio, a staff sergeant in the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment of Montauban serving with Unifil, the United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
He was killed on Saturday morning in southern Lebanon, the president said in a post on X. The three soldiers wounded in the same attack were evacuated, he added.
"Everything suggests that Hezbollah is responsible for this attack," Macron said. "France demands that the Lebanese authorities immediately arrest the perpetrators and assume their responsibilities alongside Unifil."
But Hezbollah denied any connection to the attack. In a statement, the group urged "caution in making judgments and assigning responsibilities" pending the results of an investigation by the Lebanese army.
The attack came on the second full day of a 10-day ceasefire, agreed between Israel and Hezbollah on Thursday in order to negotiate an end to six weeks of war.
Macron's office said he held calls with Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to urge them to guarantee the security of Unifil soldiers.
Both Aoun and Salam condemned the attack. The prime minister said he had ordered an "immediate investigation".
France's Macron says fragile Lebanon ceasefire 'may already be undermined'
Ambush
Montorio 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.
Montorio was "ambushed by an armed group at very close range", according to French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin.
She said he had been on a mission to clear a route to a Unifil post Deir-Kifa region that had been cut off for several days by fighting. He was struck by direct fire, Vautrin said, paying tribute to his 18 years of military service.
In a statement, Unifil said the peacekeepers "came under small-arms fire from non-state-actors" as they were clearing ordnance from a road in the village of Ghanduriyah.
Its initial assessment indicates the incoming fire was "allegedly Hezbollah", it said, adding that it had launched its own investigation into what "may amount to war crimes".
Civilians count costs of war as they return to southern Lebanon
The fighting in Lebanon has seen Unifil repeatedly targeted, by both Israeli and Hezbollah forces.
Unifil patrols in southern Lebanon, near the Israeli border where Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since last month. The militant group drew Lebanon into the Middle East war with rocket fire at Israel in support of its backer, Iran.
Three Indonesian peacekeepers were killed last month, with a preliminary UN investigation finding one was killed by Israeli tank fire, while the two others were killed by an improvised explosive device likely planted by Hezbollah.
Other Unifil peacekeepers have also been wounded since the war broke out.
In April, Israeli soldiers destroyed surveillance cameras in Unifil's headquarters, the peacekeeping body said, and last week an Israeli tank twice rammed peacekeeping vehicles, causing damage but no injuries.
UN peacekeepers have served as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel since 1978, but their mandate expires at the end of this year.
(with AFP)
