France urges Lebanese leaders to work on bringing calm along the border with Israel

France’s foreign minister is urging Lebanese leaders to work on reducing tensions along the border with Israel, warning that the raging Israel-Hamas war, now in its third month, could spread to other parts of the region

BEIRUT -- France’s foreign minister urged Lebanese leaders on Monday to work on reducing tensions along the border with Israel, warning that the Israel-Hamas war could still spread to other parts of the region.

Catherine Colonna's visit to Lebanon came a day after she visited Israel, where she called for an “immediate truce” aimed at releasing more hostages, getting larger amounts of aid into Gaza and moving toward “the beginning of a political solution.”

While she was in Beirut, Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group exchanged fire with Israeli troops along the tense frontier, which seen violent exchanges since Oct. 8 — a day after the Palestinian militant Hamas group attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

In Beirut, Colonna held talks with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri about the situation Lebanon's southern border. Officials from France, once Lebanon’s colonial ruler, have visited Lebanon over the past two months, urging for calm. For the past few years, Lebanon has been in the grips of the worst economic crisis in its modern history, which has significantly destabilized the country.

Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite militant group, are bitter enemies that last fought a war in the summer of 2006. Israel estimates that Hezbollah has around 150,000 rockets and missiles on Lebanese soil, aimed at Israel.