Beirut– Hezbollah
‘s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem has been elected as the new chief of the Lebanese movement after his predecessor Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated by Israel in Beirut last month.
“Based on faith in Allah Almighty…, adherence to Hezbollah’s principles and goals, and following the established procedure for the election of the Secretary-General, Hezbollah’s Shura Council has elected His Eminence Sheikh Naim Qassem as Secretary-General of Hezbollah, entrusting him with the blessed banner on this journey. We pray to the Almighty to grant him success in this honorable mission of leading Hezbollah and its Islamic resistance,” the council said in a statement on Tuesday.
Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant share a photo of Naim Qassem on X, saying: “Temporary appointment. Not for long.”
Speaking in front of curtains from an undisclosed location on October 8, 60 year old 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.
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 then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel in a helicopter attack the following year.
Qassem has long been one of Hezbollah’s leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media.
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 former secretary general “at the earliest opportunity” and would continue to fight Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.
“What we are doing is the bare minimum… We know that the battle may be long,” he said in a 19-minute speech.
Born in 1953 in Beirut to a family from Lebanon‘s south, Qassem’s political activism began with the Lebanese Amal Movement.
He left the group in 1979 in the wake of Iran‘s Islamic Revolution, which shaped the political thinking of many young Lebanese Shia.
Qassem took part in meetings that led to the formation of Hezbollah, established with the backing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
He has been the general coordinator of Hezbollah’s parliamentary election campaigns since the group first contested them in 1992.
In 2005, he wrote a history of Hezbollah seen as a rare “insider’s look” into the organisation. Qassem wears a white turban unlike Nasrallah and Safieddine, whose black turbans denoted their status as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
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