
The Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem. Screenshot from the speech given on Jan. 4, 2025.
The Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, delivered a speech on Saturday, during the commemoration of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, who was killed on Jan. 3, 2020, in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. He also discussed the latest political developments in Lebanon and the region, while the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, scheduled for 60 days, has been ongoing since Nov. 27 after more than 13 months of fighting, following the war in Gaza.
In the first part of his speech, he paid tribute to the former leader of the Quds Force (an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran), whom he described as "a true leader, both strategically and intellectually and politically," highlighting the role he played "in connecting various fronts in the region to support each other."
The Gaza war, three years later, demonstrated this unity of fronts among different groups of the "axis of resistance," particularly the Palestinian Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen's Houthis and pro-Tehran Iraqi militias.
A war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, and expanded to southern Lebanon the next day with Hezbollah opening a "support" front for Hamas. After the escalation of the war last September, which included the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, Qassem's predecessor, and he again praised his party's "determination," which prevented the Israeli army from advancing "beyond a few hundred meters on the front lines," whereas previously it "reached Beirut in a few days," referencing the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Qassem also stated that it is due to Hezbollah's "resilience and sacrifices" that "the enemy was forced to agree to a cease-fire."
This allows the new leader of the party to affirm that "Lebanon cannot exist without the Resistance anymore" and that it is Hezbollah's leadership "which decides when and how to fight, as well as the weapons used."
"There is no fixed timetable dictating Hezbollah's actions and the 'patience' it shows is linked to the choice of the 'right moment to confront the enemy,'" he added. "Our patience can run out before or after 60 days. When we decide to act, you will see it immediately," he added.
Since the cease-fire's implementation, Hezbollah has carried out only one strike on Israeli positions, while the Israeli army remains deployed in certain villages in southern Lebanon and has conducted strikes that killed at least 36 people.
Qassem also noted that the cease-fire agreement "concerns exclusively the area south of the Litani River," reiterating the position expressed many times in recent weeks by party officials that the Lebanese state is responsible, along with the mediators, for limiting Israel's actions and implementing the agreement.
For the record, this agreement consists of 13 points, including the fact that the Lebanese security forces and Army are the only entities authorized to bear arms or deploy troops in southern Lebanon, and Israel and Lebanon will report any violations to a committee, chaired by Americans and composed of Lebanese and Israeli army representatives, as well as representatives of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon and France, to oversee and assist in implementing the commitments of both warring parties. However, American "guarantees" to Israel assure among other things, in a parallel text, Israel's right to act at any time in case of violation of obligations in the southern zone.
For a President on Jan. 9
Qassem also talked about the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime on Dec. 8, following the offensive by Syrian rebels of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, and estimated that "in the future, the Syrian people will play a role in the confrontation with Israel." However, the new Syrian authorities have so far stated they have no intention of targeting Israel, which carried out an incursion since the regime's overthrow on the Syrian side of the Golan.
Finally, regarding the presidential election in Lebanon, a few days before a parliamentary electoral session, the head of Hezbollah expressed his "determination" that a head of state be elected "in consecutive sessions."
Lebanon has been without a president since the end of Michel Aoun's term in October 2022, and the vote session of Jan. 9, 2025 is the first scheduled by the Speaker of Parliament in more than a year. During the 10 or so sessions held since the end of the previous term, Hezbollah, the Amal Movement and their allies automatically withdrew from the chamber after the first round, causing the vote to fail. "We want the deadline of Jan. 9 to succeed to establish national and Islamic unity," he said.