{"id":707026,"date":"2026-06-01T03:43:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T03:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/707026\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T03:43:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T03:43:25","slug":"european-leaders-condemn-israels-deepening-incursion-into-lebanon-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/707026\/","title":{"rendered":"European leaders condemn Israel\u2019s deepening incursion into Lebanon | Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"

European leaders have condemned Israel\u2019s expanding incursion into Lebanon, after its military captured the medieval Beaufort castle<\/a> and Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to push even deeper into the country.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s president Emmanuel Macron called for an end to fighting, saying \u201cnothing justifies the major escalation under way in south Lebanon\u201d. The country\u2019s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, has requested a meeting of the UN security council for Monday.<\/p>\n

The foreign ministers of the UK and Germany joined France in condemning the new operation. Britain\u2019s Yvette Cooper called for the ceasefire that has been in place between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah<\/a> since April to be respected. The US-brokered truce to halt the fighting between both sides has rarely been observed.<\/p>\n

Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah, which has a strong political presence in southern Lebanon and has launched thousands of missiles and drones into northern Israel. Israel\u2019s campaign has forced more than a million people from their homes<\/a>, while 3,300 people, including dozens of children, have been killed.<\/p>\n

The current conflict began in March, after Hezbollah fired rockets towards Israel<\/a> in retaliation for the US-Israeli killing of Iran\u2019s supreme leader. Lebanon\u2019s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, on Saturday accused Israel of \u201cimplementing a policy of total destruction of cities and towns\u201d.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu has called Sunday\u2019s capture of Beaufort castle a \u201cdramatic shift\u201d in the campaign against Hezbollah. Israeli forces used the Beaufort castle, also known as Qalaat al-Shaqif, as a base during their previous two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000.<\/p>\n

Lebanon map<\/a><\/p>\n

The castle offers views across Lebanon and into northern Israel. It was built as a crusader castle around the 12th century and later occupied by Saladin\u2019s Jerusalem army, the Ottomans, the French and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.<\/p>\n

In a video statement released after the military took Beaufort, Netanyahu said \u201cWe have returned united, determined and stronger than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow my directive is to deepen and expand our hold in places that were under Hezbollah\u2019s control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu noted the historic significance of the castle, which the military first seized in 1982, calling it a \u201csymbol of a heroic battle for our fighters.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some experts have questioned the strategic significance of the capture, and said its capture amounted to little more than a public relations coup.<\/p>\n

The military\u2019s presence there will not solve the issue with Hezbollah, Orna Mizrahi, a former deputy director in Israel\u2019s national security council, told the Associated Press. \u201cWe are damaging them in the operations, but in parallel we need to pursue a political and diplomatic solution,\u201d Mizrahi said.<\/p>\n

Talks between senior officials from Israel and Lebanon began in April in Washington, the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations. Those discussions are set to continue this week, but Hezbollah is not taking part and has said it will not accept any results.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s latest advance and the continuing violence in Lebanon also present a challenge in efforts to secure a lasting peace agreement<\/a> between the US and Iran. Tehran has continued to insist that any agreement to extend the current ceasefire with Washington and return shipping to the strait of Hormuz must include an end to fighting in Lebanon as well.<\/p>\n

Observers have suggested Israeli officials and military commanders want to inflict as much damage as possible on Hezbollah before a potential deal imposes new limits or stops the current offensive.<\/p>\n

With Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European leaders have condemned Israel\u2019s expanding incursion into Lebanon, after its military captured the medieval Beaufort castle and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-707026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}