The Israeli defense minister said in late March that Israel would remain in southern Lebanon — a region it illegally occupied from 1982 to 2000 — even after the current conflict ends.
Macron has repeatedly condemned attacks against Lebanon, one of France’s closest allies in the Middle East, and urged the Israeli government to start talks with its Lebanese counterparts.
France has also accused Israeli soldiers of seeking to “intimidate” French military forces taking part in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the region.
But it is unclear whether the Pakistani-brokered U.S.-Iran ceasefire — which the French president hailed as “a very good thing” — will extend as far as Macron hopes.
Though Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said this would be the case, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight that the ceasefire “does not include Lebanon.”
