BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to speak Friday for the third time in less than one month on Yemen amid simmering tensions between his party and its political rival the Future Movement.
In a statement released late-Sunday, Hezbollah called for a gathering at 5 p.m. Friday against the Saudi-led military campaign launched last month against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Nasrallah will speak during the event, the statement added.
The speech comes at a sensitive time in Future-Hezbollah relations, which have plunged since a Saudi-led coalition began bombing Yemen on March 26 to halt advances by Houthi rebels battling the government loyalists.
However, dialogue between the rivals launched in December has continued despite the tensions. The two are expected to hold a fresh round of talks Tuesday.
On Monday, Future official Mustafa Alloush called on his party to end the dialogue with Hezbollah over anti-Hariri comments made by Nasrallah and party bloc members.
“Dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah must end in the wake of Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah and MP Mohammad Raad’s insistence on attacking Mr. [Saad] Hariri and the Future Movement,” Alloush said in remarks published by the Kuwaiti daily Al-Anbaa.
Tensions surged last week after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah launched a verbal attack against Saudi Arabia in an interview with Syrian TV channel Al-Ikhbariya.
Nasrallah also invoked Hariri in a speech late-last month, in which he pointed to the irony of the former premier denouncing Iran for interfering in regional affairs as Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention in Yemen.
Hariri attacked Nasrallah for criticizing Riyadh and denounced Iran over its role in Lebanon and Yemen.
A rebuttal then came from MP Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, who described Hariri last week as either a "slave," "ignoramus" or "coward" for going along with the Saudi war in Yemen.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Sunday that he would call on Hezbollah and the Future Movement to use a less antagonistic tone in addressing disagreements between the two parties.
Berri assured that dialogue will go on despite the rhetoric and said the next meeting is scheduled for April 14.
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Asiri said Monday that “Lebanese-Saudi relations are stronger than being evaluated by Hezbollah’s behavior,” adding that “all Lebanese from all sects respect the kingdom's deeds.”
The Hezbollah-Saudi tensions were also reflected in a lawsuit that Riyadh filed against Al-Akhbar newspaper, which generally supports Hezbollah and has openly denounced the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
The Lebanese newspaper considered the lawsuit “a direct threat to the lives of the institution’s employees,” and a group of journalists held a protest last week in solidarity with it.
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