Army disperses armed men who surrounded police seizing suspect medicines

BEIRUT — The Internal Security Forces seized medicines deemed unfit for consumption and sealed a warehouse in the Galerie Semaan area near Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, despite an attempt by a group of young men on motorcycles to prevent officers from raiding the premises, the ISF said in a statement.

Dozens of armed men, reportedly affiliated with Hezbollah, surrounded a judicial police patrol when it arrived to complete its task, before withdrawing after the army arrived at the scene, according to several local media outlets.

Agents from the Central Criminal Bureau were intervening at the warehouses of a pharmaceutical company to seize medicines unfit for consumption and not meeting the sanitary requirements for distribution. The operation was carried out under a judicial commission issued by Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation Ahmad Rami Hajj, following a report by Health Minister Rakan Nasreddine.

Several dozen armed individuals then gathered to surround the officers and demanded that the patrol chief withdraw. As their numbers reportedly exceeded 100, according to local media, the patrol chief contacted the prosecutor general, who instructed him to request reinforcements from both the army command and the Directorate General of the Internal Security Forces. The armed individuals withdrew after a substantial army reinforcement arrived to support the surrounded patrol at Galerie Semaan.

Contacted by L’Orient Today, neither Hezbollah nor the Lebanese Army were available to comment on the incident.