Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem gives a televised speech from an unknown location in this still image obtained from a video released on Dec. 5, 2025. (Al Manar TV/Reuters)
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem on Sunday called for "a broader official and popular action" and "international pressure" for the release of Lebanese prisoners kept in Israel.
At least 20 Lebanese have been abducted by the Israeli army in Lebanon, mostly in the south — including about nine after the November 2024 cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah — and remain detained to this day.
In a message to these prisoners and their families, on the occasion of "Hezbollah Prisoner Day," the leader of Hezbollah denounced the "treatment" inflicted by Israel, which "does not respect the most basic human rights" of these prisoners.
He criticized the lack of "appropriate action" by the Lebanese state to push for their release and the fact that this issue "is not among the authorities’ priorities." "It is necessary to launch broader official and popular action, as well as international pressure," he said, calling on Lebanese leaders to exert "all forms of pressure and work seriously with the countries guaranteeing the cease-fire agreement" in order to secure the release of the prisoners.
"No situation can stabilize without the release of all prisoners and clarification of the fate of the missing," added Qassem.
In December 2025, President Joseph Aoun asserted that this issue was among his "priorities." Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, at every meeting with foreign leaders, stresses the importance of pressuring Israel for the release of the prisoners, ending its attacks, and withdrawing its army from the positions it still occupies in southern Lebanon.
In December, the Israeli army published a video of an interrogation of one of the detainees, Imad Amhaz, whose abduction in the middle of the night by a navy commando from Batroun, in the North, caused an outcry.
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