Geagea slams govt. and Shiite Duo over bloodshed in south

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has commented on Sunday’s incidents in south Lebanon by saying that “the current government has once again proved that it is nonexistent and the Axis of Defiance has demonstrated that it does not value people’s lives.”

His remarks came after Israeli gunfire killed 24 people and wounded 134 others as hundreds of southerners tried to return to border towns on the deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from the area. The Israeli army had warned residents not to head to the area seeing as its forces were still deployed there in contravention of the ceasefire agreement, which was extended to February 18 in the wake of the incidents.

“For the sake of deceitful media presence, the Axis of Defiance (Hezbollah and the Amal Movement) does not hesitate to fabricate daily incidents aimed at covering up for what it has caused of tragedies and losses in lives and properties” during the September-November war with Israel, Geagea said in an interview with the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper.

Describing what happened Sunday in the south as a “tragic scene,” the LF leader noted that “there is an international monitoring committee” and that “the current government should have informed the residents of villages and towns of the places from which the Israeli army would withdraw and of the places where it intended to keep its forces, instead of letting some parties take advantage of the scene for their own interests.”

“Sending more than 20 citizens to certain death is futile, useless and will not make Israel change its stance,” Geagea suggested.

He added: “The current government must immediately regain control of the matters in terms of protecting citizens, organizing their return to where they can return, and standing in the face of the parties that are pushing them to death. The government must also communicate with the countries sponsoring the ceasefire agreement to discuss the need for (Israeli) withdrawal.”

Commenting about Hezbollah’s call for reviving the army-people-resistance equation, Geagea said: “There is only the army, the people and the state, and some are trying to benefit from the period prior to the formation of the new government to repeat equations that belong to the past and have no place in the new and promising phase that Lebanon is preparing for.”