Beirut- Hezbollah’s deputy Secretary General has pledged that the Lebanese movement was ready to meet an Israeli ground offensive, despite the killing of its leader and many senior commanders.
Israel has not hit Hezbollah’s military capabilities, said Sheikh Naim Qassem on Monday as he delivered a message of defiance in a public address. Despite the setbacks suffered during the ferocious Israeli air raids in recent days, he insisted that Hezbollah will continue to fight.
Hezbollah’s operations have continued at the same pace and more since the assasination of Sayyed Nasrallah on Friday, Qassem asserted.
He added that Hezbollah will install a new leadership soon via “internal mechanisms”. The choice of new leadership is clear, Qassem continued, without offering further details.
In his speech, Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General announced that the party would appoint a new Secretary-General as soon as possible, as per the established protocol, emphasizing that “the choices are easy and clear because we are united in purpose.”
He explained that “within [Hezbollah’s] structure, there are deputies for leaders and reserve alternatives ready [to assume positions].”
‘Ready’
“We are quite ready, if the Israelis want a ground incursion, the resistance forces are ready for that,” Qassem declared.
Hezbollah will continue with its main goals despite Israel’s aim of creating chaos with aggression and massacres against civilians in Lebanon, Qassem continued.
“Israel is committing massacres in all areas of Lebanon until there is no house left without traces of Israeli aggression in it,” he said. “Israel attacks civilians, ambulances, children and the elderly. It does not fight fighters, but rather commits massacres.”
Qassem also underlined the role of the US, which he called “a partner with Israel, through unlimited military support – culturally, politically, financially”.
“We will win, just as we won in our confrontation with Israel in 2006,” said the deputy chief as he ended the video message.
The dramatic escalation has come as Israel has shifted its focus from fighting Hamas in Gaza to its northern frontier where it has traded nearly daily crossfire with Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza in October.
Israel’s stated aim in its offensive in Lebanon is to allow the return of tens of thousands of Israeli civilians to their homes in the north of Israel.
However, its operations against Hezbollah, including the detonation of electronic communications devices that killed 39 and injured thousands, and its subsequent killing of Nasrallah, appear to have raised confidence that it could destroy its longstanding enemy in Lebanon.
For the first time since stepping up its attacks on Lebanon, Israel on Monday struck a central area of the capital Beirut, signalling further potential escalation towards an all-out war.
Wary
Hezbollah’s insistence that it can defend Lebanon was supported by backer Iran, which appears wary of the risk of a wider regional war that any direct confrontation with Israel would carry.
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