Le Drian Meets Lebanese Leaders, Tries Break Govt Deadlock

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)
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Le Drian Meets Lebanese Leaders, Tries Break Govt Deadlock

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian met Lebanese leaders on Thursday to try to break the deadlock in months of talks on forming a government to pull Lebanon out of economic crisis.

Le Drian met President Michel Aoun and influential Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Both are allies of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and is a close ally of Syria.

He has also asked to meet Gebran Bassil, the head of Lebanon’s biggest Christian parliamentary bloc and Aoun’s son-in-law, who was hit with US sanctions last year for alleged corruption and his ties to Hezbollah.

Officials had declined to confirm a meeting with Saad al-Hariri, a three-time premier who was designated to form a new government in October but has been locked in a stand-off with Aoun over the line-up, according to Reuters.

Two diplomats said Le Drian wanted to send a clear message that Paris supports the Lebanese people, but that it had had enough of the political class that had failed to meet its commitments.

"He came to Beirut to give Lebanese officials a strongly worded message, to tell them 'Lebanon is sinking and you are the ones sinking it even more...And if you don't help yourselves, nobody can help you'," a senior Lebanese political source said.

Paris said last month it was taking measures to restrict entry to France for Lebanese officials accused of blocking efforts to resolve the crisis, which has crashed the currency, paralyzed the banking sector and increased poverty.

Before flying to Beirut, Le Drian warned of punitive measures against those who were hindering progress.

“It is only the beginning,” he tweeted.



Israeli Airstrikes Kill 10 in School Housing Displaced Families, Hit Children's Hospital in Gaza

23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Israeli Airstrikes Kill 10 in School Housing Displaced Families, Hit Children's Hospital in Gaza

23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
23 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Palestinian children inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in northern Gaza killed at least 10 people, while another hit a children's hospital, local health authorities said, taking Wednesday's death toll to 20.
Medics said the airstrike on the Yaffa School in the Tuffah area of Gaza City set fire to tents and classrooms. There has been no Israeli comment on the school attack.
Some furniture was still in flames several hours after the strike as people sifted through blackened classrooms and the schoolyard in search of their belongings, Reuters reported.
“We were sleeping and suddenly something exploded, we started looking and found the whole school on fire, the tents here and there were on fire, everything was on fire," said eyewitness, Um Mohammed Al-Hwaiti.
"People were shouting and men were carrying people, charred (people), charred children, and were walking and saying: ‘Dear God, dear God, we have no one but you.’ What can we say? Dear God, only,” she told Reuters.
Medics said at least 10 other people were killed in separate Israeli strikes across the enclave. Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza's land.
On Wednesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli missile also hit the upper building of the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the solar panel system that feeds the facility with power. No one was killed in the hospital strike.
Gaza's healthcare system is close to collapse due to an Israeli blockade on all supplies to Gaza, including fuel and electricity, since the beginning of March, when it relaunched military operations.
It says the blockade is aimed at pressuring the Hamas militants who run Gaza to release 59 remaining Israeli hostages captured in the October 2023 attacks that precipitated the war. Hamas says it is prepared to free them but only as part of a deal that ends the war.
The health ministry said many Palestinian victims of Israeli military strikes remained trapped under rubble and on the roads, as rescue teams are unable to reach them because of ongoing bombardments. The attacks have also hit dozens of bulldozers and machinery used to clear roads, remove debris and to carry out rescue operations.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had hit 40 "engineering vehicles" that were used for "terrorist actions", including Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Some of those heavy vehicles were parked on the road and others inside the garages of municipalities.
“The machinery, because they open the streets and retrieve martyrs from under the houses. For a year now, some people have still not been retrieved from under the rubble," said Gaza man Nasser Mohammed Nasser, standing close to the mangled skeletons of destroyed bulldozers and trucks in Jabalia, in the north of the enclave.
Even before Tuesday's Israeli attack, Palestinians had complained they were short of heavy machinery, accusing Israel of refusing to allow the equipment into Gaza in violation of the January ceasefire deal.