Lebanon’s Geagea Says Judicial Decisions against Party Unlawful

Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party, speaks during an interview with Reuters at his residence in Maarab, Lebanon November 29, 2021. (Reuters)
Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party, speaks during an interview with Reuters at his residence in Maarab, Lebanon November 29, 2021. (Reuters)
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Lebanon’s Geagea Says Judicial Decisions against Party Unlawful

Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party, speaks during an interview with Reuters at his residence in Maarab, Lebanon November 29, 2021. (Reuters)
Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party, speaks during an interview with Reuters at his residence in Maarab, Lebanon November 29, 2021. (Reuters)

Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea said on Saturday that recent judicial decisions against his party were against the law.

Speaking at a news conference days after a judge charged him over deadly violence in Beirut in October, Geagea said that the judicial decisions were aimed at tarnishing the image of the LF.

"The attempts to isolate, encircle, intimidate and abolish the Lebanese Forces continue to this day... And the latest attempt in this regard was judicial decisions that were born-dead because they are against every law," he said, without mentioning the charge.

Seven people, all of them followers of the Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah party and its Shiite ally the Amal Movement, were killed in the Oct. 14 clashes near an old frontline of the 1975-90 civil war.

Geagea, a leading opponent of Hezbollah, was summoned to a hearing at military intelligence last October over the violence, but did not attend.

The Oct. 14 violence began as people were gathering for a protest called by Hezbollah against the judge investigating the 2020 Beirut port blast.

Hezbollah accused the LF of mounting an ambush to try to drag the country to a civil war.

Geagea has said the trouble began when supporters of the Shiite parties entered the Christian neighborhood of Ain al-Remmaneh where they vandalized cars and four residents were wounded before a shot was fired.

Geagea was speaking at an event to launch the candidacy of an LF candidate who is running in a May parliamentary election.

The Lebanese Forces media officer, Elie Kayrouz, said in a statement on Saturday that the charge is "political prejudice and an apparent slander against the Forces and Samir Geagea" ahead of the parliamentary election.



Members of UN Security Council Call for Surge in Assistance to Gaza

 Palestinian man Moein Abu Odeh searches for clothes through the rubble of a house destroyed in the Israeli military offensive, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian man Moein Abu Odeh searches for clothes through the rubble of a house destroyed in the Israeli military offensive, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
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Members of UN Security Council Call for Surge in Assistance to Gaza

 Palestinian man Moein Abu Odeh searches for clothes through the rubble of a house destroyed in the Israeli military offensive, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian man Moein Abu Odeh searches for clothes through the rubble of a house destroyed in the Israeli military offensive, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, November 18, 2024. (Reuters)

Members of the United Nations Security Council called on Monday for a surge in assistance to reach people in need in Gaza, warning that the situation in the Palestinian enclave was getting worse.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said there needs to be a "huge, huge rise in aid" to Gaza, where most of the population of 2.3 million people has been displaced and the enclave's health officials say more than 43,922 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive.

"The situation is devastating, and frankly, beyond comprehension, and it's getting worse, not better. Winter's here. Famine is imminent, and 400 days into this war, it is totally unacceptable that it's harder than ever to get aid into Gaza," Lammy said.

Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in October last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that Washington was closely watching Israel's actions to improve the situation for Palestinians and engaging with the Israeli government every day.

"Israel must also urgently take additional steps to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza," she said.

President Joe Biden's administration concluded this month that Israel was not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and therefore not violating US law, even as Washington acknowledged the humanitarian situation remained dire in the Palestinian enclave.

The assessment came after the US in an Oct. 13 letter gave Israel a list of steps to take within 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza, warning that failure to do so may have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel.

Thomas-Greenfield said Israel was working to implement 12 of the 15 steps.

"We need to see all steps fully implemented and sustained, and we need to see concrete improvement in the humanitarian situation on the ground," she said, including Israel allowing commercial trucks to move into Gaza alongside humanitarian assistance, addressing persistent lawlessness and implementing pauses in fighting in large areas of Gaza to allow assistance to reach those in need.

Tor Wennesland, the UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said humanitarian agencies face a challenging and dangerous operational environment in Gaza and access restrictions that hinder their work.

"The humanitarian situation in Gaza, as winter begins, is catastrophic, particularly developments in the north of Gaza with a large-scale and near-total displacement of the population and widespread destruction and clearing of land, amidst what looks like a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law," Wennesland said.

"The current conditions are among the worst we’ve seen during the entire war and are not set to improve," he said.