Swiss parliament approves proposal to ban Lebanon’s Hezbollah

Switzerland’s parliament approved a proposal to ban Lebanese militia group Hezbollah, describing it as a paramilitary terrorist organization.

The decision comes a week after it signed off on a law that banned Palestinian group Hamas from any activity in Switzerland.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are designated terrorist organizations by the US and many other countries. Switzerland, traditionally neutral, had previously not aligned with that stance, but that shifted after Hamas launched a large-scale attack on Israel in October of last year.

Still, after the Hamas ban, the Swiss government said this was “not a paradigm shift in the generally cautious practice of banning organizations.” It didn’t ban Hezbollah at the same time and said it would decide “only on a case-by-case basis for extremely serious reasons.”

In the next step, the Federal Council will have to draft legislation to implement parliament’s latest decision.