Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the country requires 500 million to address the humanitarian impact of the war, as a fragile 10-day ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah continues to hold.
The appeal came after a meeting in Paris between French President Emmanuel Macron and the Lebanese prime minister to discuss the ceasefire in Lebanon and France’s support for the country’s “territorial integrity”.
“Lebanon needs 500 million euros to tackle the humanitarian crisis over the next six months,” Salam said during a joint press conference with Macron.
Lebanon on Tuesday raised the toll from six weeks of war to 2,454 dead and 7,658 wounded since the conflict began on March 2, days after the broader Middle East war erupted.
For his part, Macron urged Israel to “renounce its territorial ambitions” in Lebanon, adding that Hezbollah must “cease” firing into Israeli territory and be disarmed “by the Lebanese themselves”.
He further called for an agreement between Israel and Lebanon that guarantees “the security of both countries, Lebanon’s territorial integrity, and lays the groundwork for the normalisation of their relations”.
New talks between Lebanon’s and Israel’s US ambassadors will take place Thursday in Washington, according to a US State Department official, after the first direct talks between the two countries in decades were held on 14 April.
Lebanon is demanding the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from its territory and the return of Lebanese prisoners and displaced persons, as part of the negotiations with Israel, Salam said on Tuesday ahead of the talks.
The Paris meeting followed an ambush on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon that left one French soldier dead and three others wounded, in an attack France blamed on Hezbollah.
Macron said France was “ready to maintain its commitment on the ground” in Lebanon even after the UN peacekeeping mission ends at the end of the year, winding down a decades-long mandate serving as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel.
Hezbollah — which strongly opposes the planned Lebanon-Israel talks — denied involvement in the attack that killed the French peacekeeper.
