In December Hamas announced the establishment of a new terrorist group in Lebanon with the goal of ‘liberating Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque’, reports Middle East Forum.
Hamas has called on the Palestinians living in Lebanon to join the group ‘Vanguards of the Al-Aqsa Flood’, which was the name it chose for its invasion of Israel on 7 October.
Hamas is saying that it is planning a similar invasion of Israel from Lebanon.
The announcement has drawn sharp criticism from many Lebanese. The Lebanese see how Hamas has brought devastation to the Gaza Strip as a result of their attack on Israel and fear the same consequence in Lebanon.
‘This [Hamas] statement is unacceptable, neither in form nor in content’, said Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces Party. ‘It harms Lebanese sovereignty and is again trying to harm the relationship between the Lebanese and Palestinians’.
Geagea said: ‘It is next to impossible for them to carry out any military action without the knowledge and approval of the party [Hezbollah]. There is no possibility for Hamas to issue such a statement had it not been for Hezbollah’s actual signature on it’.
Lebanese parliament member Ashraf Rifi, a former general director of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, denounced Hamas’s decision as a ‘serious mistake’ and called for its reversal. ‘Lebanon is not an arena for resistance [against Israel] or those who are deceived’, Rifi warned. ‘My advice to you [Hamas]: “Do not sink into the shifting Lebanese sands, otherwise the loss with be great”’.
Former Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, president of the Free Patriotic Movement, wrote: ‘We categorically reject the announcement by the Hamas movement in Lebanon. We also consider that any armed action from Lebanese territory [against Israel] is an assault on our national sovereignty’.
[Image Courtesy: Guilherme Paula & Oren neu dag, Released into the public domain | Wikimedia Commons]