BEIRUT – Hezbollah called on Saturday for a demonstration with the slogan of “Protecting Sovereignty and Rejecting Guardianship” in solidarity with the Lebanese citizens stranded in Iran, after the Lebanese government refused to allow the Iranian Mahan Air plane to land at Beirut airport.

During a speech by Mahmoud Qamati, a member of Hezbollah’s Political Council, the Lebanese army, with an official Lebanese signal and American order, targeted peaceful demonstrators with tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and stones.

“This is Beirut airport, not Ben Gurion airport. Those who want to face peaceful citizens should face the Israeli occupation soldiers in the south,” one of the wounded protesters told the Tehran Times.

Another protester commented, “All the masks have fallen. The disgraceful failure during the war has been exposed. We will not accept the betrayal of the blood of our martyrs. We will not accept American-Israeli guardianship.”

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam claimed that protecting the airport is a priority without mentioning the Lebanese stranded in Iran or those harmed by the army’s rabble-rousing attack.

Salam’s body language and obvious stuttering revealed the truth: his response was not to the European sanctions on Iranian aviation as he alleged but to decisive foreign orders.

If this is the case, the European sanctions apply to Iranian passenger planes that land in Doha, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Istanbul, etc. However, Salam is only responding to the US-Israeli orders.

In a meeting with former US Secretary of State Blinken on October 22 last year Netanyahu stressed the “need to change the political reality in Lebanon.”

What is happening today is an implementation of what Netanyahu and Blinken announced, which is a complete political, economic, and whenever necessary military guardianship over Lebanon.

Before the recent September-November US-led Israeli aggression on Lebanon, Netanyahu did not miss an opportunity to claim that Hezbollah controls Beirut Airport.

Netanyahu’s goal was to find a means of pressure on Lebanon, as an Israeli legal committee threatened international airlines and insurance companies, claiming that “flying to Beirut Airport amounts to a war crime due to providing assistance to Hezbollah.” 

Washington’s proxies in Lebanon have decided to take the level of The Escalation & De-escalation Policy to the max.

An informed source confirmed to the Tehran Times that Washington’s proxies seek to impose a fait accompli. Despite the dangers it involves, what is happening is a retribution against a key component of the Lebanese, the supporters of the Shiite duo. 

In turn, what is required is to confront this anti-Lebanon sovereignty project. One of the results of the recent Israeli war on Lebanon is the emergence of the resistance community’s connection to Hezbollah. 

This community is the pillar of the resistance’s strength in the political and non-political fields; it has defeated the Israeli army and expelled it from our land in 2000, and it will prevent Israeli-American guardianship over Lebanon.

In 1993, the Lebanese army, in a politically motivated decision, opened fire on a peaceful Hezbollah march. Hezbollah dealt with the crime wisely and calmly, emphasizing that the gun should be aimed at the Israeli enemy in the south only. 

Today, Hezbollah will also deal wisely and the gun will only be directed at the Israeli enemy in the south. This is a battle to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty, the interests of its people, and to preserve the precious blood of the martyrs.