Lebanon

EU blacklists Hezbollah while Israel violates Lebanese sovereignty: Analyst

myriam20130811045719137An analyst has questioned the European Union’s neutrality regarding Israel, juxtaposing the EU’s blacklisting of the Lebanese anti-Israeli resistance movement Hezbollah with its silence on the repeated Israeli violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and UN resolutions, Press TV reports.

“They [EU] just declared the so-called military wing of Hezbollah, terrorist. But wait a minute! What about these continuous violations from Israel into Lebanon? Are they not terrorist acts?” Beirut-based international lawyer Franklin Lamb told Press TV.

On July 22, the 28-nation bloc unanimously decided to put Hezbollah’s military wing on the EU blacklist. The Lebanese movement rejected the move as “aggressive” and “unjust.”

“Is it terrorism to defend their country as the national Lebanese resistance does effectively that is through the arm of Hezbollah and it’s not terrorism to invade the sovereignty territory of Lebanon?” Lamb added.

Lebanon’s army said on August 7 that four Israeli soldiers, who had crossed the border into Lebanon, were injured in an explosion inside the Lebanese territory near the town of al-Labouneh.

The statement said the Israeli soldiers crossed the UN-designated Blue Line on foot and penetrated “roughly 400 meters inside Lebanon.”

Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour condemned the incursion as a violation of UN Resolution 1701. He also said that Beirut will file a complaint with the UN Security Council about the recent Israeli incursion.

Mansour added that the incident “reveals again the Israeli enemy’s hidden intensions through its infiltration of Lebanese territory.”

Paolo Serra, the commander of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), also said on Friday that “it is clear that the presence of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon in violation of the Blue Line constitutes a serious breach of the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1701.”

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which brokered a ceasefire in the war of aggression Israel launched on Lebanon in 2006, calls on Tel Aviv to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Lamb said the incident was not unprecedented and the Israeli’s have made a “habit” of violating the resolution.

“There have been hundreds and hundreds of violations of UN Security Council resolution 1701 and violation of Lebanese sovereignty – hundreds and hundreds of these violations since 2006 when it went into force.”

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