Paris meeting parties agree to hold February army aid conference, foreign experts may inspect sites with army

Army Commander General Rodolphe Haykal met Thursday in Paris with French army chief Fabien Mandon ahead of a key meeting with U.S., French and Saudi officials to discuss ways of assisting the army in its mission to boost its presence in the border area.

The Paris meeting will discuss reinforcing the ceasefire mechanism with French, U.S. and possibly other military experts along with UNIFIL forces, reports said.

Mandon said his talks with Haykal tackled the “strategic environment and security challenges in Lebanon and its region.”

“Our two armies maintain a historic cooperation that is exemplified in the areas of training, capabilities, and joint exercises,” he wrote on X.

“The presence of the French armed forces alongside the Lebanese Armed Forces is guided by a common objective: to contribute to maintaining stability and lasting peace, in respect of Lebanon's sovereignty,” Mandon added.

Haykal later said that the army is exerting major efforts to "safeguard Lebanon's security and stability and implement the first phase of its plan for the South Litani region within the specified timeframe."

The French Foreign Ministry meanwhile announced that the parties of the Paris meeting agreed to organize a conference for supporting the Lebanese Army in February.

Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on southern and northeastern Lebanon on Thursday as a deadline looms to disarm Hezbollah along the tense frontier.

The strikes came a day before a meeting of the committee monitoring the enforcement of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that halted the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah a year ago.

It will be the second meeting of the mechanism after Israel and Lebanon appointed civilian members to a previously military-only committee. The group also includes the U.S, France and the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed along the border.

The Lebanese government has said that the army should have cleared all the border area south of the Litani river from Hezbollah’s armed presence by the end of the year.

The Israeli military claimed Thursday’s strikes hit Hezbollah infrastructure sites and launching sites in a military compound used by the group to conduct training and courses for its fighters. The Israeli military added that it struck several Hezbollah military structures in which weapons were stored, and from which Hezbollah members operated recently.

“This is an Israeli message to the Paris meeting aiming to support the Lebanese Army,” Speaker Nabih Berri said about the strikes.

“The fire belt of Israeli airstrikes is to honor the mechanism’s meeting tomorrow,” Berri added sarcastically during a parliament meeting in Beirut.