Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassem, elected head of the Lebanese armed group on Tuesday, has been a senior figure in the Iran-backed movement for more than 30 years.
Speaking in front of curtains from an undisclosed location on Oct. 8, Qassem said the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel was a war about who cries first, and Hezbollah would not cry first. The group’s capabilities were intact despite “painful blows” from Israel.
But he added the group supported the efforts of parliament speaker Nabih Berri – a Hezbollah ally – to secure a ceasefire, for the first time omitting any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a pre-condition for halting the group’s fire on Israel.
His 30-minute televised address came just days after senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine was thought to have been the target of an Israeli strike and 11 days after the killing of Hezbollah’s secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Safieddine’s killing was confirmed by Hezbollah on Oct. 23. Qassem was appointed deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group’s then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.
Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, and has long been one of Hezbollah’s leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media including as cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.
Qassem’s televised address on Oct. 8 was his second since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah intensified in September.
He was the first member of Hezbollah’s top leadership to make televised remarks after Nasrallah’s killing in an Israeli air attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sept. 27.
Speaking on Sept. 30, Qassem said Hezbollah would choose a successor to its slain secretary general “at the earliest opportunity” and would continue to fight Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.
