France has requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon after the death of three peacekeepers and has made its condemnation of the deaths known to Israel, its foreign minister said Monday.
France "condemns in the strongest terms the gunfire" that caused the deaths of three UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon in two incidents, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on the X social media platform. Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting in southern Lebanon as part of the widening Middle East war.
"France also condemns the serious incidents experienced yesterday (Sunday) by the French contingent in UNIFIL in the Naqura area," Barrot said, adding that the anger had "been conveyed with the utmost firmness to the Israeli ambassador in Paris."
