Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy head, warned Israelis on Tuesday that the only answer to the present fighting was a truce that would allow north Israel inhabitants to return, stressing that his party would not be vanquished.
“I am telling the Israeli home front: the solution is a ceasefire,” Qassem said in his third address since an Israeli strike killed former leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“I am not speaking from a position of weakness, because if Israel does not want (a ceasefire), we will continue,” he added.
“The resistance (Hezbollah) will not be defeated because this is its land,” he said.
“After a ceasefire via indirect agreement”, residents of northern Israel will “return to the north and the other steps will be drawn up”, Qassem said.
“Since the Israeli enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place” in Israel, “whether the centre, the north or the south”, he said. “We will choose the point that we see appropriate”.
On September 23, Israel launched a heavy bombardment on Hezbollah strongholds in south and east Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, after nearly a year of cross-border shooting between the two sides.
Israel later declared combat operations in south Lebanon, and Hezbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers have been fighting near the border, with the Iran-backed group constantly claiming Israeli infiltration attempts.
In the pre-recorded video, which was also shared on social media, Qassem is seen sat at a desk with little Lebanese and Hezbollah flags and a framed portrait of Nasrallah, in contrast to the deputy chief’s two previous, darkly illuminated statements after Nasrallah’s death on September 27.
Qassem stated that his organization has initiated a “equation of hurting the enemy,” frequently targeting northern Israel’s Haifa area and warning that “with the continuation of the war, the number of uninhabited” Israeli communities would increase.
“More than two million people will be in the danger zone,” he said.
Hezbollah opened what it says is a “support front” for Gaza from Lebanon, launching cross-border attacks into Israel the day after its Palestinian ally Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.