Jamaa Islamiya armed parade and gunfire draw condemnations

Gunmen in north Lebanon paraded with light- and medium-caliber arms and fired heavily in the air during the funeral of two Jamaa Islamiya militants killed in an Israeli drone strike, drawing condemnations from some Lebanese political forces.

The two militants, Mohammad Saeed Khalaf and Bilal Mohammad Khalaf, were targeted by the Israeli strike in the West Bekaa town of Maydoun on Friday.

The funeral procession started at Tripoli’s al-Nour Square and made its way through Minieh, al-Abdeh and al-Mhammara before reaching the militants’ hometown Bebnin in the Akkar district, where stray bullets wounded three people including a child.

MP Waddah al-Sadek said “armed appearances inside the country only serve Israel,” decrying that “the bullets and shells landed in Akkar, which lies hundreds of kilometers away from Jerusalem, wounding Lebanese citizens and highlighting anew the insistence on destroying the state.”

“The main responsibility falls on the Jamaa Islamiya, with its insistence on unjustified armed appearances, previously on Beirut’s streets and yesterday in Akkar,” al-Sadek added.

The Tajaddod bloc, which comprises MPs Michel Mouawad, Ashraf Rifi, Fouad Makhzoumi and Adib Abdel Massih, for its part said its rejects “the scenes of armed parades and chaotic weapons,” stressing that “only the state with its legitimate forces is responsible for defending Lebanon.”

MP Mark Daou for his part warned that such a parade “undermines the principle of the state, legitimacy and sovereignty.”

Jamaa Islamiya meanwhile issued a statement regretting “the armed appearances and shooting that accompanied the transfer of the coffins of the two martyrs from Tripoli to Bebnin.”

Stressing that it is “keen on the country’s stability and the citizen’s security,” the group said that “any bullet fired at any side other than the Israeli enemy would be at the wrong place” and that “any scene that sows fear and panic among the Lebanese is unacceptable.”

The Israeli military said Friday that it targeted an official with Lebanon’s Jamaa Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, that is allied with Hezbollah and Hamas. It has been active in predominantly Sunni Muslim villages along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.

The Israeli military said the man killed was Musab Khalaf. It says Khalaf was behind attacks on Israeli troops in the disputed Shebaa Farms that Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war. The Lebanese government says the area belongs to Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire on a near-daily basis along the border since the start of the war in Gaza nearly seven months ago. Hezbollah says it is acting in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.