Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: French Proposal Has Some Acceptable Points, Others Need Amendment

Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R) shows a map in his office showing the expansion of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon to visiting French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne (L) during their meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, 28 April 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R) shows a map in his office showing the expansion of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon to visiting French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne (L) during their meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, 28 April 2024. (EPA)
TT

Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: French Proposal Has Some Acceptable Points, Others Need Amendment

Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R) shows a map in his office showing the expansion of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon to visiting French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne (L) during their meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, 28 April 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R) shows a map in his office showing the expansion of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon to visiting French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne (L) during their meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, 28 April 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon’s parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Thursday he will reply on Friday or Saturday to France’s latest proposal over how to resolve tensions with Israel.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said the latest proposal included "some acceptable points and others that were not and must be amended."

French officials shared on Tuesday proposals made to Lebanese authorities to defuse tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said as Paris attempts to work as an intermediary between the sides.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in escalating daily cross-border strikes over the past six months - in parallel with the war in Gaza - and their increasing range and sophistication has raised fears of a wider regional conflict.

Hezbollah has amassed a large arsenal since 2006 and since October thousands of people on both sides of the border have been displaced.

"A number of proposals that we made to the Lebanese side have been shared (with you)," Sejourne said.

Sejourne was in Lebanon on Sunday where he met officials including politicians close to Hezbollah. French officials say they had seen progress in the responses from Lebanese authorities. Sejourne said the basis of the proposals was to ensure UN resolution 1701 was implemented.

Hezbollah has said it will not enter any concrete discussion until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, where the war between Israel and Hamas is in its seventh month.

Israel has flagged a potential military operation along its northern front, saying it wants to restore calm on the border with Lebanon so thousands of Israelis can return to the area without fear of rocket attacks, even if Hezbollah has said it will not stop exchanges until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

Sejourne presented this year a written proposal to both sides that included Hezbollah's elite unit pulling back 10km (6 miles) from the Israeli border and Israel halting strikes in southern Lebanon.

It also looked at long-term border issues and was discussed with partners including the United States, which is making its own efforts to ease tensions and exerts the most influence on Israel.

Berri did not go into details, saying the proposal will be up for debate.

"It wouldn’t be right to discuss it before the media before receiving the French response and how much they will be receptive to our comments," he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He revealed that the proposal was written in English, rather than French, "which came as a surprise."

Berri added that a ceasefire reached in Gaza will inevitably be implemented in southern Lebanon because both conflicts are connected.

Furthermore, he condemned Israel for its "systematic destruction of Lebanese towns and villages along the border."

"Israel is bent on destroying them the same way it is levelling Gaza to the ground," he stated. "It wants to turn the areas into scorched earth in a flagrant attempt to incite the supporters of the resistance against the fighters who are confronting the Israeli occupation that is violating resolution 1701."

He cited Israel’s use of phosphorous bombs, which are banned by the international community, that destroy agricultural lands and render them unusable.

Meanwhile, a prominent source from the Shiite duo of Hezbollah and Berri’s Amal movement said the speaker’s response to the French proposal enjoys "unconditional" support from Hezbollah and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TT

Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".