Lebanese Ministry of Information
Speaker Nabih Berri Tuesday renewed his warning against Israel’s plan to build a wall along Lebanon’s southern border.
Berri said that the United Nations peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon has been informed by Israel that construction work on a wall will begin at the end of the month, despite Lebanon’s opposition.
“Israel isn’t only being allowed to build a wall on the Lebanese-Palestinian border, but also to build it in a contested area within the Lebanese border,” Berri told attendees of the 13th session of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation member states in Tehran. Berri arrived in Iran Monday afternoon as part of a Lebanese delegation to participate in the conference.
Late last year, Berri sounded the alarm over the alleged construction plans. At the time, he referred to a secret report that said Israel intended to build a wall from Ras al-Naqoura to Alma Shaab and from Adaisseh to Kfar Kila.
Berri claimed moving forward with the wall was either an attempt to pressure Lebanon into accepting U.S. President Donald Trump’s December decision to recognize occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, or to punish Lebanon for its rejection of the decision.
Trump’s announcement was a reversal of longstanding U.S. policy and a blow to efforts to reach a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine issue.
During his speech at the PUIC, Berri called for annulling the Oslo peace accords in protest of Trump’s decision.
The Oslo accords were several agreements signed in the mid-1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and were the foundation of a peace process that has essentially been in a stalemate for years.
“The Oslo accords should be annulled and abandoned,” Berri said.
The speaker renewed his calls to move embassies of Muslim-majority states from Washington “and to boycott the Trump administration until they reverse the decision on Jerusalem.”
He said that the resistance among the Palestinian people should be supported until a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is established.
