IJ censures Germany’s blacklisting Hezbollah

GAZA CITY (Agencies): The Gaza-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement has denounced Germany’s move to blacklist Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah, saying Berlin behaved in “compliance” with the United States and the Israeli regime.

In a statement on Saturday, the movement described the German measure as “compliance with Israeli and American pressures and a bias in favor of the Israeli occupation,” which “is practicing aggression and terrorism and constitutes an ongoing threat to the region’s security and stability.”

On Thursday, Berlin designated Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization,” banned all of its activities in the European country and ordered raids on sites police claimed were linked to the movement.

Furthermore, some property in the capital Berlin, Bremen and North Rhine-Westphalia were searched early on Thursday, according to the German police.

The German Interior Ministry, which has issued the ban, says four mosques and cultural associations were raided, as well as private homes of Hezbollah’s board members, treasurers and tax advisers.

The Lebanese resistance movement has had a significant role in assisting the Lebanese army in defending the country against frequent Israeli aerial incursions into Lebanon. Moreover, Hezbollah also has had an important role in an anti-militancy campaign in neighboring Syria.

“Hezbollah is one of the main pillars of the legitimate resistance in the face of the Zionist entity’s repeated attempts to assault the Lebanese soil. Therefore, such step makes the German position more biased in favor of the occupation,” the Islamic Jihad further said, stressing that the German position is “rejected by the Arab and Muslim nations and the world’s free people.”

In a similar reaction on Saturday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, also based in the besieged Gaza Strip, lambasted the Berlin’s decision against Hezbollah “a blatant bias in favor of the story told by [Israeli] occupation, which is practicing ongoing aggression and terrorism against our Arab peoples.”

In a press release, carried by the Palestine Information Center, spokesman for Hamas Hazem Qasem also said that “adopting the Zionist occupation’s side of the story emboldens it to persist in its aggression and its refusal to comply with all international resolutions and laws, and with humanitarian norms.”

The Hamas official also stressed that leaders of the Israeli regime were in fact “the ones who must be classified as terrorists and prosecuted at international tribunals for committing crimes and massacres for over 70 years.”

Germany has been a longtime supporter of Israel, providing billions of dollars in aid enabling the occupation of Palestine in the name of reparations for Jewish persecution by the Nazi Germany.