Hezbollah Backs Suleiman Franjieh for Lebanon’s Presidency

In this file photo taken on October 31, 2016, Lebanese MP and presidential candidate Suleiman Franjieh leaves the parliament after a session to elect a new president in Beirut. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on October 31, 2016, Lebanese MP and presidential candidate Suleiman Franjieh leaves the parliament after a session to elect a new president in Beirut. (AFP)
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Hezbollah Backs Suleiman Franjieh for Lebanon’s Presidency

In this file photo taken on October 31, 2016, Lebanese MP and presidential candidate Suleiman Franjieh leaves the parliament after a session to elect a new president in Beirut. (AFP)
In this file photo taken on October 31, 2016, Lebanese MP and presidential candidate Suleiman Franjieh leaves the parliament after a session to elect a new president in Beirut. (AFP)

The Hezbollah party will back head of the Marada Movement Suleiman Franjieh to be the Lebanon’s president, the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday, a move that gives him important backing but does not secure his election.

Lebanon has had no head of state since former president Michel Aoun's term ended at the end of October, deepening institutional paralysis in a country where one of the world's-worst economic crises has been festering for years.

"The natural candidate we support in the presidential elections is (former) minister Suleiman Frangieh," Nasrallah said.

Franjieh, 56, is heir to an old Lebanese political dynasty and a friend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

His grandfather, of the same name, served as president from 1970 into Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

Franjieh has the support of parliament Speaker Nabih Berri's Amal Movement party but still falls short of the 65 votes required for him to be elected.

A close Hezbollah ally, he appeared close to becoming president in 2016, but Hezbollah's support went to Aoun - another of its Christian allies who now have a 20-member bloc in parliament but have opposed Franjieh’s election.

Franjieh’s candidacy is also opposed by the Lebanese Forces party led by Samir Geagea.

Franjieh’s parents and sister were killed by the Lebanese Forces militia in 1978 at their home in the north of the country.

Franjieh held Geagea - an LF commander at the time - responsible for the raid. Geagea has denied taking part, saying he was wounded before reaching the house.

In 2018, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi oversaw reconciliation between the two.



UN Refugee Chief Says Airstrikes in Lebanon Have Violated Humanitarian Law

A general view shows damage in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in Choueifat, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon, October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer
A general view shows damage in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in Choueifat, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon, October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer
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UN Refugee Chief Says Airstrikes in Lebanon Have Violated Humanitarian Law

A general view shows damage in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in Choueifat, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon, October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer
A general view shows damage in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in Choueifat, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, Lebanon, October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer

The United Nations' refugee chief Filippo Grandi said on Sunday that airstrikes in Lebanon had violated international humanitarian law by hitting civilian infrastructure and killing civilians, in reference to Israel's bombardment of the country.

"Unfortunately, many instances of violations of international humanitarian law in the way the airstrikes are conducted that have destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure, have killed civilians, have impacted humanitarian operations," he told media in Beirut, Reuters reported.

Grandi was in Lebanon as it struggles to cope with the displacement of more than 1.2 million people as a result of an expanded Israeli air and ground operation.

Fighting had previously been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, in parallel to Israel's war in Gaza against Palestinian group Hamas.

Grandi said all parties to the conflict and those with influence on them should "stop this carnage that is happening both in Gaza and in Lebanon today".

More than 2,000 people have been killed and nearly 10,000 wounded in Lebanon in nearly a year of fighting, most in the past two weeks, the Lebanese health ministry says. Israel says around 50 civilians and soldiers have been killed.

Israel says it targets military capabilities and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, while Lebanese authorities say civilians have been targeted.

Israel accuses both Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.

Grandi said the World Health Organization briefed him "about egregious violations of IHL in respect of health facilities in particular that have been impacted in various locations of Lebanon", using an acronym for international humanitarian law.

Attacks on civilian homes may also be violations, though the matter requires further assessment, he said.

The fighting has led some 220,000 people to cross the Lebanese border with Syria, 70% of whom are Syrians and 30% Lebanese, Grandi said, saying these were conservative estimates.

Israel's bombardment of the main border crossing with Syria at Masnaa on Friday was "a huge obstacle", to those flows of people continuing, he said.

Many of the Syrians leaving Lebanon had sought refuge and fled war and a security crackdown after the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

Now was an opportunity for the Syrian government to show that returnees' "safety and ability to go back to their homes or wherever they need to go is respected", Grandi said.