Thousands participated on Friday in the funeral ceremony of a party official in Lebanon who was killed this week, according to the authorities, at the hands of Syrian gang members, while some supporters of the Lebanese Forces Party pointed the finger of blame at Hezbollah.
The Lebanese authorities arrested 7 Syrians in the case of the killing of local official in the Lebanese Forces Party, Pascal Suleiman, after he was kidnapped on Sunday in the Jbeil region (north) and his body was found in Syria.
On Monday evening, the Lebanese army indicated that “during the investigation with most of the Syrian gang members participating in the kidnapping, it became clear that the kidnapped person was killed by them while they were trying to steal his car in the Jbeil area.”
The funeral of Pascal Suleiman
For its part, the Lebanese Forces Party considered the killing of Suleiman “a political assassination until proven otherwise.”
In a speech he delivered after the funeral on Friday, the head of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, stressed that his party “wants to change the failed and corrupt authority that put us on the last floor of hell,” as he put it.
He added: “In order for us to be able to do that, we must know the truth and have the country’s decision be in our hands so that we do not find ourselves in an endless war as is happening now,” alluding to the exchange of bombing between Hezbollah and Israel across the southern border, with the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip continuing. Gaza.
In a televised speech on Monday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah denied that his party was involved in the kidnapping, considering that those accusing him were inciting sectarian strife.
In front of Saint George Church in Jbeil, supporters of the Lebanese Forces waved party flags on Friday, and some of them expressed their disbelief in the initial official story.
The killing of Suleiman fueled sentiments against the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, which has been witnessing a severe economic crisis since 2019 and hosts about two million Syrians, including 800,000 registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is the highest number of refugees in the world relative to the population.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Interior and Municipalities in the Lebanese caretaker government, Bassam Mawlawi, called for strictness “in applying the laws” to Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
In turn, Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, who presided over the funeral ceremony, called for “finding a final solution to the presence of” Syrian refugees “whom Lebanon received with every human spirit, but some of whom commit horrific crimes.”
Ramzi Qais, a researcher on Lebanese affairs at Human Rights Watch, said on Tuesday that “the attempt to make refugees a scapegoat threatens to fuel the violence against them that has been ongoing for years.”
