Beirut’s Supreme Defense Council is urging the Hamas Palestinian terrorist group to cease operations that compromise “Lebanon’s sovereignty,” the body said on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference following a meeting at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanese Maj. Gen. Mohammad Mustafa, the body’s secretary, announced that the council decided to recommend that parliament issue a warning to Hamas terrorists not to use Lebanese territory to carry out actions that could jeopardize the country’s stability, under penalty of “strict measures” against them.
“It must warn the Hamas movement not to use Lebanese territory to carry out any action affecting Lebanese national security, under penalty of taking the strictest measures and dispositions to put an end to any violation of Lebanese sovereignty,” L’Orient Today quoted the general as saying.
“The council also took note of the launch of judicial proceedings, scheduled for the beginning of next week, against those arrested in connection with the March rocket fire,” Mustafa told reporters.
On March 29, Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander Gen. Rodolph Haykal told the state-run National News Agency that several people had been detained in connection with the firing of rockets into Israel the previous day.
For the third time since the ceasefire with Beirut took effect on Nov. 27, terrorists in the Land of the Cedars had fired rockets at the Galilee on March 28, with air-raid sirens sounding in the Kiryat Shmona area.
The arrested suspects were said to include Palestinians and Lebanese.
Haykal said that rocket attacks from Southern Lebanon serve “the enemy,” meaning the Jewish state, and reaffirmed the military’s commitment to safeguarding Lebanon and its people.
On April 20, the LAF announced that it had preempted preparations for an attack on northern Israel, raiding a terrorist’s apartment in Lebanon’s south and seizing several projectiles.
“As a result of ongoing monitoring, surveillance and investigations, the Intelligence Directorate obtained information about preparations for a new rocket launch targeting the occupied Palestinian territories,” the LAF wrote in an Arabic-language statement posted to its social media channels.
The November ceasefire required an Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group moving north of the Litani River and the LAF acting as a buffer between the two.
However, Jerusalem announced in February that it would maintain a presence in five key strategic locations on the Israel-Lebanon border, as Hezbollah and LAF had not completed carrying out their obligations.
These positions are deemed essential for ensuring the security of northern Israeli communities until the LAF is fully able to assume control over Lebanon’s south under a U.S.-monitored mechanism.