A French soldier was killed and three others wounded in an ambush Saturday on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon that French President Emmanuel Macron blamed on Hezbollah, an accusation the group has denied.The attack follows an agreement between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday for a 10-day ceasefire to negotiate an end to six weeks of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group.”Everything points to Hezbollah being responsible for this attack,” Macron said on X, urging Lebanese authorities to arrest the perpetrators.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack in a statement and said an initial assessment by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) found it was carried out by the Iranian-backed group.But Hezbollah — which is strongly opposed to the planned talks with Israel — denied involvement in the attack that killed the French peacekeeper, identified as staff sergeant Florian Montorio.”Hezbollah denies any connection to the incident that occurred with UNIFIL forces in the Ghandouriyeh-Bint Jbeil area,” it said in a statement.The group urged “caution in making judgements and assigning responsibilities” pending the results of the Lebanese army’s investigation into the incident. The fighting in Lebanon — one of the fronts in the Middle East war — has seen UNIFIL deployed there repeatedly targeted, by both Israeli and Hezbollah forces.Montorio, was caught in an “ambush” as his unit headed to a UNIFIL outpost cut off by fighting and he died from a “direct gunshot”, France’s armed forces minister Catherine Vautrin said on X.He 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. – Possible ‘war crimes’ -His commanding officer, Colonel Jeremy Akil, paid tribute to “an exceptional soldier” who had served in various conflict zones since enlisting in 2007. The 40-year-old father of two daughters was “at the end of his military career” and was due to return to civilian life within months, Akil added.His death came as Lebanon is eyeing the first direct negotiations with Israel in decades, a move Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun insisted was not a “concession” in an apparent rebuttal of Hezbollah criticism.But senior Hezbollah official Mahmud Qamati on Saturday said that his group was “not concerned with the negotiations being conducted by the state”, saying they were “a failure, weak, defeated… and submissive negotiations”.Aoun condemned the attack and pledged to bring those responsible to justice, while Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said he had ordered an investigation.UNIFIL, in an online statement, said the peacekeepers “came under small-arms fire from non-state-actors” as they were “clearing explosive ordnance along a road in the village of Ghanduriyah” to get to the outpost.”Tragically, one peacekeeper succumbed to his injuries and three others were injured, two of them seriously,” it said, adding that it had launched its own investigation into what “may amount to war crimes”.The force patrols in south Lebanon near the Israeli border, where Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since last month after the Iran-backed 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 erupted, and in April, Israeli soldiers destroyed surveillance cameras in UNIFIL’s headquarters, the peacekeeping body said.Last week, an Israeli tank twice rammed peacekeeping vehicles, causing damage but no injuries, according to UNIFIL.UN peacekeepers have served as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel for decades, but their mandate concludes at the end of this year.
