Beirut, Lebanon – Mohammad Raad, head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc, issued a statement implicitly denying reports that he was targeted in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, hours after news of his assassination circulated. In the statement, Raad sharply criticized Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s stance following the emergency session at Baabda Palace.
Criticism of government decisions
In the statement, Raad said the bloc “understands the Lebanese government’s impotence in the face of the brutal Zionist enemy, which violates national sovereignty, occupies land, and poses a constant threat to the country’s security and stability.” He added that it also understands “its right to decide on war and peace, and its inability to implement and impose this decision on the enemy that violates national peace.”
He rejected what he described as “arrogant decisions”.
The statement asserted that “given this clear deficiency and inadequacy, there is no justification for President Salam and his government to take arrogant decisions against the Lebanese who reject the occupation and accuse them of violating the peace.” It further noted that Israel “has disregarded the requirements of peace and imposed a state of daily war on the Lebanese for a year and four months.”
A stance on Hezbollah’s response
Raad added that the Lebanese “were expecting a decision to prohibit aggression, but instead they were faced with a decision to prohibit even rejecting aggression,” as he put it. He also considered Hezbollah’s reaction to what he described as “Zionist aggression” to be “a signal of rejection of the path of submission and the deception of the Lebanese people into believing that reconciliation with the enemy and submission to its conditions is the only way to achieve security and peace.” The statement comes amid escalating security tensions in Beirut’s southern suburbs, with Lebanese factions exchanging accusations regarding how to handle the recent developments on the ground.
