Kataeb Urges 'Utmost Firmness' in Dealing with Rocket Attacks from South

The Kataeb Party on Monday urged Lebanese authorities to show “utmost firmness” in dealing with the recurrent rocket attacks from south Lebanon against north Israel, warning that such activity might “quickly drag Lebanon into the region's conflict.”

Moreover, the party cautioned that the firing of rockets could undermine U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 devastating war between Israel and Hizbullah.

Several rockets were fired on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from southern Lebanon into northern Israel without causing any casualties, in an escalation apparently linked to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian confrontation.

In a statement issued after the weekly meeting of its political bureau, Kataeb also called for thwarting any attempts to undermine security in Tripoli, stressing that the northern city must not be used as “an arena for exchanging local and regional messages through plotting against the security plan” that got underway in April.

The party underlined that the “impending threats posed by the bloody situation in Gaza and the events in the region, especially in Iraq and Syria … must represent a pressing factor to exit the (domestic) political crisis and prevent it from turning into a political system crisis.”

It called on the rival political camps to immediately elect a new president, warning that “any additional delay would push Lebanon into a more dangerous situation at the existential level.”

Turning to the issue of the constitutionality of legislative sessions amid the current presidential void, the party reiterated its “firm stance” that any session would be “unconstitutional” if it did not aim at electing a new president or drafting a new electoral law for parliamentary polls.

“Any disregard for this norm would push the presidential elections to lowest level of priority,” Kataeb said.

Separately, the party condemned “the Israeli war against the Gaza Strip, which is causing civilian casualties around the clock,” urging the international community to “halt this massacre against the Palestinian people.”

At least 172 Palestinians have been killed and around 1,230 wounded in the Israeli operation dubbed Protective Edge, which started Tuesday in an attempt to halt rocket fire by Gaza-based groups.

Y.R.

M.T.