A bipartisan group of members of Congress introduced a resolution on July 18 “urging the European Union to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization.”
The resolution “coincides with the 11th anniversary of Hezbollah’s deadly assault in Bulgaria, where a bus carrying Israeli youths was targeted, resulting in the loss of six lives, including the Bulgarian bus driver, and leaving dozens of others injured,” said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.).
Schneider co-sponsored the resolution with Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.).
“Hezbollah continues utilizing Europe as a base to initiate its criminal and extremist terrorist,” Schneider said. “However, while the E.U. designates Hezbollah’s military branch as a sanctioned terrorist organization, its political wing remains excluded from the list.”
Rosen stated that “it’s clear that there is no distinction between Hezbollah’s political and military wings when it comes to its terror activities, and it’s past time that the European Union fully designate it as a terrorist organization.”
The two surviving suspects in a 2012 suicide bombing in Bulgaria remain at large. Meliad Farah, 35, and Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 28, received life sentences in absentia in 2018.
