French defense minister voices fear of 'imminent civil war' in Lebanon

By Nur Asena Erturk

The French defense minister voiced fear of an “imminent civil war” in Lebanon amid a risk of a regional spillover.

“The weakening of Hezbollah is good news, we will not say the opposite, but we see that Lebanon can completely collapse, more than what it already has,” Sebastien Lecornu told the broadcaster LCI on Monday evening.

He stressed that France’s objective is to “avoid an interfaith and a civil war in Lebanon,” and recalled that Israel deliberately fired on UN peacekeeping missions last week, “probably to intimidate.”

Lecornu also emphasized that the Israeli army “like the army of any democracy, any country, must respect international law.”

Israel dramatically escalated its massive bombing campaign across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing more than 1,500 people, injuring over 4,500 others, and displacing more than 1 million people.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed at least 42,600 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Middle East was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, on Oct. 1, it expanded the conflict by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon.