Since the start of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas in October, Hezbollah has been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, a war that the LF and other Lebanese parties oppose.
The leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) party on Sunday accused the pro-Iranian Hezbollah of dragging the country into a war against Israel to support the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza without consulting the Lebanese. In a scathing speech against the Lebanese Islamist party, Samir Geagea, head of the main Christian parliamentary bloc, accused Hezbollah of “to confiscate the decision of the Lebanese regarding war and peace, as if there were no state (..)”.
Since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas in October, Hezbollah has been exchanging daily cross-border fire with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, a war that the LF and other Lebanese parties oppose.
A war “imposed on the Lebanese”
It is “a war that the Lebanese reject, but which was imposed on them”Samir Geagea said in a speech to his supporters north of Beirut. “This is a war that the Lebanese do not want and over which the government had no say. This war does not serve Lebanon, it has brought nothing to Gaza, nor alleviated its suffering one iota.”he added.
Created and financed by Iran, Hezbollah is the only Lebanese faction to have kept its weapons after the civil war (1975-1990). Its arsenal, significantly larger than that of the Lebanese army, is presented by its supporters as a bulwark against Israel, Hezbollah’s sworn enemy. But its detractors believe that the party forms a “State within a State”.
“This war, which Hezbollah has engaged in, must end before it becomes a major war that will leave no one unscathed.”Mr Geagea said as his supporters chanted slogans hostile to the Shiite party. He called on the Lebanese government “to call on Hezbollah to stop this absurd war which has neither justification nor perspective”.
Avoid regional conflagration
According to the UN, more than 110,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in southern Lebanon, which has left 607 dead, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also 132 civilians, according to an AFP tally. The speech comes a week after the biggest outbreak of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, with the Israeli army announcing it had foiled a major Hezbollah attack on Israeli territory.
Hezbollah, for its part, had assured that it had launched hundreds of drones and rockets on Israel to avenge the death of one of its military leaders killed in an Israeli strike near Beirut at the end of July. The intensity of the violence has since subsided, with both sides, according to analysts, showing restraint to avoid a regional conflagration.
