Hezbollah supporters take to Beirut’s streets to protest Israel deal

BEIRUT: Hezbollah supporters took to the streets of Beirut late Friday to protest an agreement between Israel and Lebanon, as a lawmaker from the Iran-backed group warned enforcing the deal risked sparking civil war.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that “Hezbollah supporters rode motorbikes through the streets of Beirut” including central areas and along a road leading to the airport “in protest at the framework agreement announced between Lebanon and Israel”.

An AFP correspondent saw people riding motorbikes and chanting slogans along one road, as well as Lebanese army temporary checkpoints set up along several streets of the capital.

Lebanese “authorities will be unable to impose the implementation of the agreement signed in Washington unless they go, with American support, to civil war,” said Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, whose party has long rejected the direct Israel-Lebanon talks.

He added that “what happened in Washington is an attempt to disrupt the Islamabad path, and without the resistance (Hezbollah) nothing will pass,” referring to the initial agreement between the US and Iran on halting the Middle East war, which includes Lebanon.

Footage circulating on local outlets and social media showed hundreds of Hezbollah supporters on motorbikes and mopeds roaming Beirut’s southern suburbs, the group’s stronghold, before they headed to the heart of the capital.

Some had gathered near the seat of the government and blocked a main road nearby, while other footage showed soldiers chasing away Hezbollah supporters who blocked the main road leading to the airport with burning tyres, before the army reopened it.

The NNA had said protesters blocked at least one major road with burning tyres.