BEIRUT - A trio of political leaders criticized the summoning of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to appear on Wednesday before the military court as a witness in the investigation into the deadly Oct. 14 fighting in Beirut's Tayyouneh area.

Here's what we know:

    • Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and Kataeb leader, Samy Gemayel - who in the past were allied with Geagea in the March 14 coalition but have since grown more politically distant with the LF leader - criticized the court for not summoning Amal or Hezbollah officials.

    • Lebanese army intelligence notified Geagea on Monday of his summons to give testimony in the deadly clashes, a source in the LF told L'Orient Today. The summons requires Geagea to appear at the Defense Ministry on Wednesday morning.

    • A firefight erupted in Tayyouneh on Oct. 14 that left seven people dead and more than 30 injured, with Amal and Hezbollah accusing gunmen allegedly belonging to the LF of opening fire on demonstrators gathering for a protest outside the Justice Palace against Tarek Bitar, the judge investigating the 2020 Beirut port explosion. The LF has denied involvement in the shooting.

    • Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah accused Geagea in a televised speech Oct. 18 of provoking the fight and having no qualms with starting a civil war. Last Thursday, Geagea replied that he was ready to appear at the military court if Nasrallah appears before him.

    • Hariri tweeted that all parties concerned in the incident “should appear before requirements of national interest.” He added that notifying the LF leader of his summons by pasting a letter at the entrance to his residence was “absurd.” Hariri argued this summoning “leads the country to more division and shows that public institutions are instruments in the service of revenge policies.”

    • Hariri also said that he had voluntarily refrained from commenting on the incidents in Tayyouneh.

    • Jumblatt made similar claims, tweeting that, “In order to achieve transparency and justice away from selectivity and in order to give some hope to the citizen who has nothing to do with the conflict of local axes, it is better to arrest all involved in the Tayyouneh incident without discrimination and stop this sterile and destructive political debate. ”

    • Kataeb Party leader and resigned MP Sami Gemayel warned on twitter against “bartering” between the investigation into the fighting at Tayyouneh and the probe into the Beirut port blast. “The summoning of Geagea is an attempt to barter with the investigation into the explosions at the port, which we refuse,” he wrote.

    • Resigned MP Michel Moawad also used the same “barter” terminology, saying that the “the summoning of LF leader Samir Geagea and the non-summoning of leaders of Hezbollah and Amal movement ... prove that the aim is to barter [between] the investigations. ”