Naim Qassem Announced As New Hezbollah Leader
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement has announced deputy head Naim Qassem to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as leader after he was killed in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month.
“Hezbollah’s (governing) Shura Council agreed to elect… Sheikh Naim Qassem as secretary general of Hezbollah,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement, more than a month after Nasrallah’s killing.
Hezbollah pledged to keep “the flame of resistance burning” until victory is achieved against Israel after all-out war erupted on September 23.
Meanwhile Israel in a quick response by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned in a post on X that Qassem’s appointment was “not for long”.
In a separate social media post in Hebrew, Gallant wrote that the “countdown has begun”.
A source close to Hezbollah said Qassem was elected by the five-member Shura Council, the group’s main decision-making body, two days before Tuesday’s announcement.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press, said a new Shura Council would be elected after the war.
The council may then opt to elect a new leader or keep Qassem in the top post, the source said.
71 years old Qassem was one of Hezbollah’s founders in 1982 and had been the party’s deputy secretary general since 1991, the year before Nasrallah took the helm.
