内容摘要：Macron said the debt "put a price on the freedom of a young nation, which was thus confronted, from its very inception, with the unjust force of history".

Macron said the debt "put a price on the freedom of a young nation, which was thus confronted, from its very inception, with the unjust force of history".

The escalation also came hours after Israeli troops began an invasion of southern Lebanon to remove what the military said were "Hezbollah terror targets” in border villages that posed a threat to residents of northern Israel.Israel has gone on the offensive against the Shia Islamist political and military organisation after almost a year of cross-border hostilities sparked by the war with Hamas in Gaza. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran and designated as terrorist organisations by Israel, the US, UK and others.

Iran does not recognise Israel's right to exist and seeks its eradication. It has spent years building a network of armed groups across the Middle East, known as the “Axis of Resistance”, which are opposed to Israel and the US.Israel believes that Iran poses an existential threat and has spent years engaged in a shadow war with Iran that has is now increasingly out in the open.Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday night that Iran’s missile attack “failed”, having been “thwarted thanks to Israel’s air defence array”.

“Iran made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it,” he added. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies.”Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also vowed vengeance.

"Iran has not learned a simple lesson - those who attack the state of Israel pay a heavy price," he said in a statement.

US President Joe Biden reaffirmed US support for Israel after the missile attack, describing it as "defeated and ineffective".The concern behind the very public worry about losing hundreds and hundreds of seats is that "we might not yet actually have hit the bottom", in the words of another veteran.

Leader Kemi Badenoch's backers continually say that rebuilding the party is a long-term project, and praise her for managing to draw at least a faint line under the toxic infighting that corroded Conservative ranks in recent years.The broad sense in Westminster is that dreadful results next week won't usher Badenoch to the door. Still, you'd be hard pressed to find a Conservative who'd happily bet their mortgage she'll definitely be in charge by the time of the next election.

That's in large part because in the words of one Tory bigwig, "she was working on the basis that it was her versus Starmer but it's not her versus Starmer, it's her versus Starmer and Farage and Davey".This election is pick and mix, with the newest morsels on offer coming from Nigel Farage's Reform UK. They see success in these elections as "two or three more steps up the staircase" towards power, says a senior figure.