Lebanese Forces party chief denounces Hezbollah for fight with Israel

The head of the Christian political party Lebanese Forces accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into a war with Israel without consulting the people.

In a speech attacking the Islamist group, Samir Geagea, who heads the main Christian bloc in parliament, accuses Hezbollah of “confiscating the Lebanese people’s decision on war and peace, as if there were no state.”

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, Hezbollah has engaged in near daily cross-border fire with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, which the Lebanese Forces and other parties oppose.

The clashes are “a war that the Lebanese people reject, but has been imposed on them,” Geagea says in a speech to supporters in northern Beirut.

“It is a war that the Lebanese people do not want and over which the government has had no say. This war does not serve Lebanon, it has brought nothing to Gaza, nor alleviated its suffering one iota,” he adds.