Bassil wants Hezbollah to 'submit to state', slams 'cover' granted to Israel

Free Patriotic Movement leader Jebran Bassil has lamented that Israel has “deliberately” targeted “civilians who have no connection to the war – doctors, engineers, paramedics, students, and this time a school principal and her family."

Criticizing Lebanese authorities for “standing idly by while the crime is committed,” Bassil wondered: "Is there any authority that denies a victim their right to legal recourse, abandons a ceasefire agreement and U.N. Resolution 1701, and forsakes its allies in the five-party committee, only to accept a framework agreement with a state with which it is still at war?”

“We want the state to be the one negotiating, we want the decision and weapons to be exclusive to the state, and we want Hezbollah to submit to the state, but we do not want (Israeli PM Benjamin) Netanyahu to repeat after every action he takes that the Lebanese state is the one that gave him cover.”

This puts the decision “in the hands of Israel and Iran, not in the hands of Lebanon, and that is not how the decision should be,” Bassil warned.