Lebanon faces severe crisis, needs €500 million in aid: PM

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Tuesday that the country needed 500 million euros to address the war’s humanitarian fallout, as a fragile 10-day ceasefire holds between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

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 the 2nd day 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 both countries’ security and 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 individuals as part of the negotiations with Israel, Salam said on Tuesday.

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.