Iranian parliament speaker arrives in Beirut for 1-day visit

BEITUT

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf arrived in Beirut on Saturday for a one-day visit, according to local sources.

Ghalibaf landed at Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport in the morning and is expected to meet with Lebanese officials.

His trip follows an invitation from Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and comes amid ongoing Israeli escalation in Lebanon.

The purpose of his visit is to convey a message from Iran to the Lebanese people and the Hezbollah group in support of their efforts against Israeli "crimes," according to Iran’s Mehr News Agency.

After his meetings in Beirut, Ghalibaf will head to Geneva to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union Summit, where he is expected to address the Israeli escalation and express Iran’s support for resistance groups.

The summit is set to take place from Oct. 13 to 17 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,411 people, injuring over 3,970 others, and displacing more than 1.34 million people.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed over 42,100 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Mideast was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, it expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.
* Writing by Ikram Kouachi in Ankara