Sheikh Qassem: Hezbollah not to be vanquished
Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem warned Israelis on Tuesday that the only solution to the current war is a cease-fire, saying the Lebanese resistance movement would not be defeated.
“Since the Israeli enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place” in Israel, “whether the center, the north or the south,” Sheikh Qassem said in the speech, adding, “I am telling the Israeli home front: the solution is a cease-fire... the resistance (Hezbollah) will not be defeated because this is its land.”
“We are not seeking a cease-fire because we are weak,” he said.
The speech marked his third appearance since Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27.
He said that the group is now focused on “hurting the enemy,” exemplified by targeting the Israeli city of Haifa and areas beyond it, including Tel Aviv.
“We will defeat our enemies and drive them out of our lands,” Qassem said.
If Israel continues its bombardment and ground invasion in Lebanon, he said, Hezbollah’s strikes will expand over a geographically wider area and “more than 2 million will be in danger.”
Qassem linked the ongoing conflict in Lebanon to the broader struggle of the Palestinians, and to the ongoing Israel’s war in Gaza.
“We cannot separate Lebanon from Palestine, or Palestine from the world,” he said.
“Israel is a usurper and an occupying regime, and a real danger to the entire region and the world,” he said.
“This regime does not limit its occupation to Palestine; it seeks to expand its control as Palestine alone is insufficient for its ambitions. Israel also aims to dominate the territories of Arab and Muslim states.”
The Hezbollah official emphasized the importance of resistance in the face of the massacres Israel and its backers perpetrate.
“Israel and those behind it wage war and commit massacres, leaving us with no choice but to take a stand,” Sheikh Qassem asserted.
‘New Middle East’
He also exposed the joint US-Israeli scheme in West Asia, stating, “America, the biggest devil, wants a new Middle East. Netanyahu shares the same vision. This means the US and Israel are deliberately carrying out this genocide.”
In his address, Sheikh Qassem referred to Operation al-Aqsa Storm – the October 7, 2023 attack on the Israeli entity – saying that the Palestinians, led by Hamas, “tried to get rid of the occupier.”
He noted that the Palestinian Resistance sent a message to the world, saying, “Seventy-five years have passed, and the occupation is still there on our land, killing us.”
Instead of questioning why the al-Aqsa Storm occurred, he urged the world to ask, “Why is the occupation still there?”
After almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli forces along the Lebanese border, Israel on September 23 intensified its strikes against targets in Lebanon and sent ground troops across the frontier a week later. More than 2,300 Lebanese have been killed in Israel’s strikes on Lebanon since October 2023.