Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (Archive photo: Hassan Ibrahim/Official account of the Lebanese Parliament)
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Wednesday that “the Israeli threat facing South Lebanon constitutes a danger to all Lebanese,” calling for it to be addressed “with a national approach.”
“The Israeli threats that have targeted and continue to target the south actually concern all Lebanese. [They] must understand these dangers, these challenges, and their consequences in a national context,” Berry said.
On the sidelines of a meeting with a delegation of religious leaders representing the various denominations of Akkar, the head of the Amal Movement said that “Lebanon would no longer be Lebanon without this unique formula of unity and coexistence in the region, which stands as the antithesis to Israeli racism.”
Berri also urged the guarantor countries of the cease-fire monitoring ‘mechanism,’ notably the United States and France, to “fully assume their responsibilities” in order to “force Israel to cease its aggression against Lebanon and withdraw from the territories it still occupies in the south.”
The Israeli army has continued to occupy at least five positions in southern Lebanon since Jan. 26, the day it was supposed to complete its full withdrawal from Lebanese territory under the cease-fire agreement that came into effect on Nov. 27, 2024, which was meant to end more than 13 months of war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The Parliament speaker also stressed that “all the crises Lebanon suffers internally result from the refusal to apply the reform provisions of the Taif Agreement,” specifically referencing the clause on “achieving balanced development.” The governorate of Akkar, he lamented, “remains a victim of persistent deprivation because this principle has not been implemented.”
