00:00French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barraud has left Lebanon and is arriving in Israel this Friday.
00:05His visit is aimed at trying to secure ceasefire talks. Claire Pekalon reports from Beirut.
00:11French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barraud has been in Beirut, as you say, and he has been meeting
00:17with the President, the Lebanese President, the Lebanese Prime Minister and the Lebanese
00:21Speaker of Parliament. He's expressed France's desire for this escalation in violence to be
00:27put to an end and he also expressed his support with the Lebanese army who are, he says, trying
00:32to protect the sovereignty of Lebanon. Here in Beirut, where I am in central Beirut, we've had a
00:38much calmer day than we had yesterday. We haven't had the Israeli airstrikes hitting targets here in
00:44the centre of Beirut. The fighting has been more concentrated in the south of Lebanon, so fighting
00:50on the ground, ground fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, as well as airstrikes from the air from
00:55Israel. What we understand is that there has been fighting around Harim, the village of the town
00:59of Harim and the town of Tebe. That's information that we're getting from our sister radio station,
01:05MCD. It's France 24's sister radio station, which broadcasts in Arabic. And they actually
01:11have a correspondent. He's living in one of the Christian villages near the border, a Lebanese
01:16Christian village near the border with Israel. And she's one of those residents who's decided
01:21to stay on despite being in the red zone, despite being in an area where Israel has said residents
01:26need to evacuate. She was telling us that they were running short on supplies, they're running
01:31low on supplies. But the UNIFIL, so the UN's peacekeeping mission, has managed to get some
01:37fresh food and water and supplies to them. So the moment they're getting by, they have enough
01:42to eat. And that handful of Christian villages which are in the red zone, which have decided
01:48to stay on. Residents have decided to stay put. They simply say they have nothing to do
01:52with Hezbollah. They want to protect their homes and they don't want to leave their lands.
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