Palestine research institute: Netanyahu uses Lebanese, Palestinian blood as a “winning election card”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is treating Lebanese and Palestinian blood as a winning electoral card, Major General Habis al-Sharouf, director of the Palestine Institute for National Security Research, said.

He said Israel had respected neither the ethics of the truce nor the ethics of war, “nor anything”.

 “Israel now wants to impose a fait accompli in southern Lebanon. To do so, it does not want residents in the border areas and carries out assassinations and shelling on a daily basis,” al-Sharouf said during an interview on Cairo News programme Midday, presented by journalist Hager Galal.

He said Israel aims to displace residents and leave the area empty for several reasons, foremost among them forcing Hezbollah to accept Israeli conditions. It also wants to use the situation as a bargaining chip with the Lebanese delegation negotiating those conditions and their various consequences, he added.

“The final and important point for them is the upcoming election,” al-Sharouf said. “They want to reassure Israelis living in the north that they are continuing to strike Hezbollah and its infrastructure, so as to keep the threat away from them.”

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