Israel has rejected a French initiative to hold a trilateral summit to heighten diplomatic efforts to end the eight months of cross-border violence in the north between the IDF and the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah situation in Lebanon.
“Israel will not be a party to the trilateral framework proposed by France,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday.
“As we fight a just war, defending our people, ‘” Gallant stated.
“In doing so, France ignores the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli children, women and men,” he added.
Diplomatic solutions to Hezbollah attacks
Tensions have been high between Paris and Jerusalem, since France for the first time banned Israeli defense companies from participating in the industry’s largest global arms exhibit, called the Eurosatory, which is set to be held in Paris on the 17th through the 21st of this month.
Still French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced that the three countries had agreed to work together to find a diplomatic solution to the escalating violence, which since October 7 has prevented scores of thousands of Israelis from living in their homes along the northern border.
“With the United States we agreed on the principle of a trilateral (contact group), Israel, the United States, and France to advance on the roadmap that we proposed and we will do the same with the Lebanese authorities,” Macron told reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy.
Hezbollah, which has ruled out ending hostilities until there is a ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian proxy group Hamas in Gaza, said it had launched rockets and weaponized drones at nine Israeli military sites in a coordinated attack on Thursday, ramping up hostilities on Lebanon’s southern border for the second consecutive day.
A senior French official said there was an urgency for the United States and France to step up their efforts given the dangerous escalation.
France and the United States have in recent months worked to try to defuse tensions with Paris submitting written proposals to both sides aimed at stopping worsening exchanges between them on the border between Lebanon and Israel.
France has a special relationship with Lebanon, because it administered the country between World War I and World War II, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. US Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos Hochstein has also been pushing for a diplomatic resolution.
Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi and Strategic Affairs Adviser Ron Dermer are slated to travel to Washington next week to hold talks with top US officials about Iran and its wars with the two proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Read More: Gallant rejects Paris’s framework on Hezbollah: ‘France has adopted hostile policies’
