Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri confirmed on Wednesday that he will not leave the Lebanese people, noting that “his father was assassinated because he owned a project for Lebanon.”
Several thousand Lebanese gathered, on Wednesday, in central Beirut on the nineteenth anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, at a time when his supporters appealed to his son Saad to resume his political activity, which has been suspended since the beginning of 2022.
Rafik Hariri, who was Prime Minister of Lebanon before his resignation in October 2004, was killed on February 14, 2005 when a suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives as his armored convoy passed through Beirut. The attack left 22 dead and 226 wounded.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon sentenced two Hezbollah members in absentia to life imprisonment for the crime of “conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and complicity in premeditated murder.”
Since the morning hours, Hariri’s supporters have flocked to the vicinity of the shrine in central Beirut, and some of them carried pictures of Hariri, father and son, and chanted supportive slogans.
After reciting Al-Fatihah at his father’s grave, Hariri greeted his supporters. Despite the heavy rain falling, dozens of them shook hands from behind iron barriers placed by the security forces.
Mahmoud Hammoud (32 years old), who came from the Western Bekaa (east), told Agence France-Presse on the sidelines of his participation in the gathering: “We participate today because the coming of Sheikh Saad is dear to us, and because the day of the martyrdom of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is historic for us, and it is always in our hearts.”
He added: “All of Lebanon today supports Saad Hariri’s return to political work, because he is the savior of Lebanon and is able to attract external support.”
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