Hezbollah’s Deputy Leader, Naim Qassem has emphasized that the group’s ability to resist Israel’s military is intact after a series of attacks and assassinations by Israel.
In a live televised speech, Qassem averred, “What our enemies say about our fighting capabilities is an illusion. They are lying.”
“Our fighters on the front line are solid. What happened over the last 10 days is the pain of the Israelis is increasing. We are telling them, more and more Israelis will be displaced from the settlements. The Israeli plan is to kill Lebanese civilians and empty villages to cause chaos.
“But I tell them, your efforts are a failure.”
Naim Qassem
Qassem claimed that Israel and Western nations are trying to put fear into the armed group after the assassination of leader Hassan Nasrallah, but it is not working.
He also praised the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel a year ago, saying it was “the first step for change” towards freedom for the Palestinians.
Qassem denounced Israel for killing women, children and elderly in Gaza in response.
He asserted that Hezbollah considers the United States a fundamental partner in all the “crimes taking place in Gaza, as well as a part of Europe,” adding that if it were not for American support, “the Israeli aggression would have stopped within a month.”
Moreover, he stressed that the group would elect a new Secretary-General and will announce it once it has been done.
Qassem remarks came hours after the Israeli military said that it killed Suhail Hussein Husseini, the commander of Hezbollah’s headquarters, in an attack on Beirut.
It said Husseini was responsible for transferring weapons from Iran and distributing the arms to Hezbollah’s various units.
UN Warns Lebanon Could Face Same ‘Spiral Of Doom’ As Gaza
Meanwhile, UN humanitarian officials called for urgent action to stop the escalating conflict in Lebanon from spiralling into a similar scene of devastation as seen in Gaza.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva from Beirut, Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for the United Nations’ World Food Programme, said that he had spent the first half of the year coordinating WFP’s operations in Gaza before taking the helm of its Lebanon office, and was deeply concerned by the similarities. “We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening,” he said.
“It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom … We shouldn’t allow that to happen.”
Matthew Hollingworth
Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 1,100 people and displaced upwards of a million in less than two weeks.
James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, echoed Hollingworth’s statement.
“The commonalities are unfortunately absolutely there to be seen, whether it is displacement on the ground, impact upon children or language being used … [to] soften the realities on the ground.”
James Elder
Jeremy Laurence of the UN rights office added, “We are seeing the same patterns that we saw in Gaza.”
He noted that the devastation is beyond belief for all people in Lebanon as it is in Gaza.
Additionally, WHO’s Ian Clarke, Deputy Incident Manager for Lebanon, told a Geneva news conference by videolink from Beirut that there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks, such as acute watery diarrhoea, hepatitis A, and a number of vaccine-preventable diseases in Lebanon
The UN health agency has already warned that the system is overstretched. Clarke noted that so far, five hospitals in the country have closed and four are only partly functional.
He added that hospitals had been shut because medics had either fled the fighting or been asked to evacuate by Lebanese authorities.
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