Hezbollah supporters posted on Sunday photos and videos showing armored vehicles and tanks belonging to the party in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, just days after the ammunition truck incident in the town of Kahaleh that led to the killing of one resident and a Hezbollah member.
The vehicles are expected to be displayed on Monday during a Hezbollah military parade on the occasion of the 17th anniversary of the end of the July 2006 war.
The parade will mark a precedent for Hezbollah as the party had previously only organized symbolic unarmed military displays.
It also comes at a time of mounting criticism of Hezbollah’s weapons by partisan, political and spiritual powers, including Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rai, who stressed during Sunday mass sermon that it was “not possible to live on one land, where there is more than one state, one army and one authority.”
A Hezbollah truck carrying ammunition overturned in the Christian-dominated area of Kahaleh last week, sparking clashes and tensions between the residents and Hezbollah members, leading to the death of two persons.
Head of the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc MP Mohammad Raad said the Kahaleh incident was “due to the incitement and hatred stirred by others.”
He added: “Israel’s allies have influenced some fools in the country to incite against the resistance [Hezbollah].”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general Sheikh Naim Qassem noted that the party had no decision now regarding a comprehensive military confrontation with Israel.
In a statement to the Iranian Mehr agency, he said Israel was trying to achieve small and limited goals, “but all this will neither lead to a direct confrontation, nor does it mean that Israel is now in a state of great readiness for war.”
