Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron held a difficult conversation last week over the escalating situation in Lebanon, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Friday.
According to the report, Macron, who initiated the call, hurled harsh accusations at the Israeli premier for leading Israel and Lebanon to the brink of a full-scale war.
“The responsibility to prevent escalation is yours. You can opt for a diplomatic solution. This is the moment to show leadership and responsibility. Your activity in the north is pushing the region to war,” Macron was quoted in the report as saying.
Netanyahu replied: “Instead of putting the pressure on us, it’s about time you pressured Hezbollah. We will bring our residents back home [in the north]. This is the decision we made this week, and we will act on it.”
On Thursday, France voted in favor of a U.N. General Assembly resolution proposed by the Palestinian Authority to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel.
Israeli officials expressed their disappointment over Paris’s stance, including its inability to put diplomatic pressure on Hezbollah to end its hostilities, Channel 12 reported.
“You, the French, do what you still think you must diplomatically do and we will do what we must do,” senior officials in Jerusalem said in the report.
A French source noted that “a diplomatic agreement in the north is still possible, on condition that all sides take responsibility. The latest security developments are worrying because they fuel a new dynamic of escalation.”
Macron expressed his sympathies with the Lebanese people in footage uploaded to X, saying that “escalation is in no one’s interest.”
In the wake of the two-day attack across Lebanon in which pagers and walkie-talkie communication devices held by Hezbollah operatives exploded, killing dozens and injuring thousands more, Macron noted that Lebanon should not “live in fear of an imminent war.”
He said that “nothing—no regional adventure, no private interests, no faithfulness to any cause whatsoever—is worth launching a conflict in Lebanon over. Lebanon’s integrity, security and sovereignty must be preserved,” he added.
This was not the first time Macron has been critical of Israel and Netanyahu.
In March, he said that the forcible transfer of Gazans from Rafah ahead of a prospective Israeli military operation in the city would constitute a “war crime.”
The French president further stated that Paris was planning to circulate a draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council calling for “an immediate and lasting ceasefire.”
