The ‘Sovereign Front for Lebanon’ filed a complaint before the military court against the Hamas movement, over the firing of rockets from southern Lebanon at Israel more than two weeks ago, and threatening Lebanon’s security.
The political group requested “an investigation with any foreign party that violates Lebanese sovereignty.”
In the first judicial case against Hamas in Lebanon, the front expressed its rejection to the establishment of “11 military bases outside the Palestinian camps, belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which extend from Naameh south of Beirut to Qusaya on the Lebanese and Syrian borders.”
“The most dangerous of these military bases is the Naameh base, which overlooks Beirut International Airport, the Beirut-South Highway, the Shouf Road, and others, and includes military tunnels and warehouses for weapons and missiles,” the group warned.
These bases “contain hundreds of armed men, and are outside the authority of the Lebanese state, not subject to the Palestine Liberation Organization, and receive orders from the Syrian regime,” it added.
On April 6, southern Lebanon witnessed security tension as a result of the firing of 34 rockets from Lebanese territory towards Israeli settlements. The attacks did not result in casualties, but prompted Israeli artillery fire that targeted Hamas positions in the Rashidieh camp, south of Tyre.
While observers put the operation in the context of “responding to the Israeli police’s violation of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the attack on worshipers, and the Israeli raids that targeted Iranian sites in Syria,” Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, confirmed that the operation “consolidated the bases of deterrence adopted by the axis of resistance against the Israeli enemy.”
In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat, member of the ‘Sovereign Front for Lebanon’, Lawyer Elie Mahfoud, said: “What we have done is a formal but legal step. It serves as a legal cry that the Lebanese people and … countries interested in Lebanese affairs must hear, that there are those who seek to turn Lebanon into a military base.”
Whether the front had evidence and documents confirming the involvement of Hamas in firing rockets at Israel, Mahfoud explained that the main foreign, Arab and even local media reported that Hamas was behind the operation, adding that the movement itself did not deny it.
