BEIRUT — Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said
that a first delivery of Iranian fuel would arrive Thursday in Lebanon to help
ease dire shortages in the embattled country.
اضافة اعلان
Lebanon is facing one of its worst-ever economic crises,
with more than three out of four Lebanese considered to be under the poverty
line and mains electricity only available a handful of hours a day, while
petrol, bread and medicine shortages are sowing chaos across the country.
Last month Nasrallah announced that a shipload of
fuel for
Lebanon would depart from its key ally Iran, in defiance of US sanctions on
Tehran.
At the time he did not say where the ship was headed to or
how the fuel would reach Lebanon, but insisted that others would follow.
On Monday, Nasrallah said in a television address that the
first shipload of fuel had reached the Syrian port of Banias, where it was
being unloaded.
"It is expected that the transport of the fuel will
begin on Thursday," he said, adding that it would be carried overland to
Baalbek region, in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, where it would be stored
before its distribution.
He also thanked the group's other regional ally, Syria, for
receiving the fuel and providing trucks to transport it to Lebanon.
Nasrallah said Monday that Hezbollah wanted to distribute
the Iranian fuel free of charge to institutions such as state hospitals,
nursing homes, orphanages and the Red Cross.
The rest, he added, would be sold at "below cost"
to bakeries, private hospitals or companies that run private generators.
He said Hezbollah "is not looking to make a business
out of this but wants to help ease the people's hardships".
Hezbollah, which has fought alongside President Bashar Al-Assad's
forces in the Syrian conflict, is designated as a terrorist group by much of
the West.
But the Shiite movement is also a major political force in
Lebanon and the only group to have kept its arsenal of weapons following the
end of the country's 1975–1990 civil war.
Nasrallah was speaking hours after Lebanon's newly formed
government held its first meeting to discuss how to address the country's woes.
He welcomed the formation of the government after 13 months
of political wrangling and said its priority should be to "ease the
suffering" of the Lebanese.
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