Defiant statement by Hezbollah deputy secretary-general says group will continue to fight
Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, in an address, has claimed Israel is committing massacres of civilians in Lebanon with the full support of the US, that Hezbollah ‘love martyrdom’, and that any other organisation would have collapsed in the face of the attacks launched at it by Israel, but it did not. He pledged the group would continue to fight Israel and “victory will be ours”.
He said
Israel is committing crimes and massacres in every part of Lebanon. Israel has chosen particular villages and towns and houses, and every house has the traces of the Israeli aggression. Israel attacks the civilians, the medics. Israel attacks everyone who walks in the streets and, everyone who stays in the houses. They are not fighters. The Israeli forces are killing, committing massacres and crimes against the civilians
The US administration is supporting Israel by all means, and America is a partner with Israel in everything, through the unlimited military support, all types and kinds of support, culturally, politically, economically. And if Israel thinks that determination to be brutal and to continue aggressions, then Israel is deluded. The pains are there, the sacrifices are there. But everyone must know that we love martyrdom.
He went on to say:
We have sacrificed a lot since the pager operations and the martyrdom of the leaders and the martyrdom of the leader. If this happens anywhere else, these organisations will collapse, but we did not. We are going on despite the pains and the sacrifices. We are going on because we have the hope and we trust Allah almighty to be victorious. We are the people of jihad.
He boasted of Hezbollah’s reach into Israel and ability to target places like Haifa, and said that just one missile had caused a large number of Israelis to flee their homes.
He said that Hezbollah would continue to fight, saying:
We are all there in the field, despite the loss of some leaders and Hassan Nasrallah the main target, and despite the aggressive attacks against all the civilians in Lebanon, despite the sacrifices and the actions that are aimed to create chaos in our front. We will stay there. We will be steadfast. We will continue the Islamic resistance. We will continue facing the Israeli enemy in support of Palestine and Gaza and in defence of our Lebanese people.
He suggested that Hezbollah was currently using “the minimum efforts from our side” and said that “We are strong enough, and we will turn the Israelis mad because they will never, ever be able to reach and hit and hurt our military capabilities.”
He finished by saying “We need to be patient. We need some time. But the tools and equipment are there. Allah almight asked us to prepare the tools and the equipment and inshallah, this is happening, and this will happen, and peace be upon you all.”
Key events
Reuters reports that 12 people, including journalist Wafa Al-Udaini, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza today. It cited Palestinian health officials.
Udaini’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in the Israeli offensive since 7 October to 174, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists puts the figure slightly lower, at 116 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October, which still makes it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Germany’s foreign spokesperson has said that Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, via an airstrike on a residential area of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, was use of Israel’s right to self-defence.
Reuters reports the spokesperson said:
Hezbollah is of course a terrorist organization and it was obviously a meeting of the top leadership of Hezbollah, from which one can assume, even from a distance, that they were planning their further operations. So in this respect, there are also reasons to believe that the right to self-defence was exercised here.
Lebanon will hold a parliamentary session to elect a new president as soon as a ceasefire in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel takes hold, Retuers reports the caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said on Monday after talks with the house speaker. Lebanon has been without a president since October 2022, when the term of Michel Aoun ended.
Russia’s condemns Israeli killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and ‘heavy casualties’ caused in residential areas
The Kremlin on Monday condemned the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli air attack last week, Reuters reports.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Nasrallah’s death had led to a serious destabilisation in the broader region. He said the bombing of residential areas in Lebanon had caused heavy casualties and would create a humanitarian catastrophe akin to the one in Gaza.
Israel’s military has issued a statement about the killing of Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon, who the organisation earlier said was killed in an airstrike.
In the statement, Israel said:
Overnight, during a joint IDF and ISA intelligence-based activity, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist Fatah Sharif, head of the Lebanon branch in the Hamas terrorist organisation.
Sharif was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives. He was also responsible for Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.
He led the Hamas terrorist organization’s force buildup efforts in Lebanon and operated to advance Hamas’ interests in Lebanon, both politically and militarily.
The IDF and the ISA will to continue to operate against anyone who poses a threat to the civilians of the state of Israel.
In another part of his address, the Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem said that Israeli tactics against the organisation consisted of “two tracks”.
He said:
To our families and our beloved ones, I know the sacrifice is great. And the enemy works on two tracks. One to attack the military capabilities and the leaders of the resistance. The other track to hit the towns, villages and civilians, to create a rift between the resistance and the people.
The Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem did not announce replacements for any of the senior figures recently assassinated by Israel, but said the matter was in hand.
He said “in our hierarchy, we have deputies for all commanders. We have other alternatives in case the leader was killed or got injured.”
He added “We will choose a secretary general for Hezbollah sooner [rather] than later, according to the mechanism put in to select the new secretary general. And all the posts, all the vacancies will be filled.”
Defiant statement by Hezbollah deputy secretary-general says group will continue to fight
Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, in an address, has claimed Israel is committing massacres of civilians in Lebanon with the full support of the US, that Hezbollah ‘love martyrdom’, and that any other organisation would have collapsed in the face of the attacks launched at it by Israel, but it did not. He pledged the group would continue to fight Israel and “victory will be ours”.
He said
Israel is committing crimes and massacres in every part of Lebanon. Israel has chosen particular villages and towns and houses, and every house has the traces of the Israeli aggression. Israel attacks the civilians, the medics. Israel attacks everyone who walks in the streets and, everyone who stays in the houses. They are not fighters. The Israeli forces are killing, committing massacres and crimes against the civilians
The US administration is supporting Israel by all means, and America is a partner with Israel in everything, through the unlimited military support, all types and kinds of support, culturally, politically, economically. And if Israel thinks that determination to be brutal and to continue aggressions, then Israel is deluded. The pains are there, the sacrifices are there. But everyone must know that we love martyrdom.
He went on to say:
We have sacrificed a lot since the pager operations and the martyrdom of the leaders and the martyrdom of the leader. If this happens anywhere else, these organisations will collapse, but we did not. We are going on despite the pains and the sacrifices. We are going on because we have the hope and we trust Allah almighty to be victorious. We are the people of jihad.
He boasted of Hezbollah’s reach into Israel and ability to target places like Haifa, and said that just one missile had caused a large number of Israelis to flee their homes.
He said that Hezbollah would continue to fight, saying:
We are all there in the field, despite the loss of some leaders and Hassan Nasrallah the main target, and despite the aggressive attacks against all the civilians in Lebanon, despite the sacrifices and the actions that are aimed to create chaos in our front. We will stay there. We will be steadfast. We will continue the Islamic resistance. We will continue facing the Israeli enemy in support of Palestine and Gaza and in defence of our Lebanese people.
He suggested that Hezbollah was currently using “the minimum efforts from our side” and said that “We are strong enough, and we will turn the Israelis mad because they will never, ever be able to reach and hit and hurt our military capabilities.”
He finished by saying “We need to be patient. We need some time. But the tools and equipment are there. Allah almight asked us to prepare the tools and the equipment and inshallah, this is happening, and this will happen, and peace be upon you all.”
Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem giving address
Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem has begun an address, and said the group lost a brother and a leader when Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. He has offered condolences to the families of everybody who was killed in the same strike.
Reuters reports, citing the state news agency WAM, that the UAE is to pledge an urgent relief aid package worth $100m (£74.5m / €89.3m) to Lebanon.
While Israel steps up its attacks on targets inside Lebanon to its north, the Israeli military also continues operations in Gaza to its south-west. Hani Mahmoud reporting for Al Jazeera from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, tells the news network:
Since this morning, we’ve been seeing funeral after funeral in the halls of the hospital. And there are more bodies still in the morgue as officials are waiting for family members to arrive and take them for burial. Additionally, more shelters have been attacked by Israel, deepening the trauma as it plays out this psychological warfare. The Palestinians’ sense of safety is shattered by these attacks.
Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which has also raided and closed the network’s officie in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
There are multiple unconfirmed reports of explosions being heard in Damascus in Syria.
More details soon …
Our video team have put together this report on Israel’s attack against the Houthi-controlled Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.
Israel’s military has stated on its official Telegram channel that in the last hour about 35 projectiles have crossed into northern Israel from Lebanon. It said “several projectiles were intercepted and the rest fell in open areas”. There are no reports of any casualties.
There are media reports that Hezbollah deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, will be giving a speech at noon local time (9am GMT).
More details soon …
Iran will not leave any of “the criminal acts” of Israel unanswered, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a weekly news conference on Monday, Reuters reports.
In other Iranian reaction, the Tasnim news agency quotes head of the Iranian government information council, Elias Hazrati, saying:
We will show the defeat of Israel to the people of the world. The experience of the past several decades shows that the page will return.
Hezbollah’s foundations are so strong that there is no possibility of disruption on its path. Hezbollah has kicked Israel out of Lebanon many times. A terrorist who should have been arrested is now ordering assassinations from the United Nation.
Hezbollah has not used its weapons and now it must start. The Islamic Republic of Iran stands by the people of Lebanon and Hezbollah, and we use all our capacity to help Hezbollah and the people of Lebanon.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Lebanon over the news wires.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is convening an extraordinary informal meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday to discuss the EU’s response to the latest escalation in Lebanon, Rueters reports an EU spokesperson said on Monday.
Peter Beaumont
Here is the latest round-up of news from the Middle East crisis from my colleague Peter Beaumont:
Israel’s rapidly expanding war on multiple fronts saw it strike central Beirut for the first time since 2006 early on Monday, after heavy Israeli air strikes involving dozens of aircraft bombed Yemen hours earlier in a long range raid.
The latest strike came as the UN reported some 100,000 people had fled Lebanon for Syria since the latest escalation in the war and as CNN quoted an unnamed figure in the Biden administration saying that the US has changed it military posture in the Middle East amid concerns Iran might attack Israel in response for Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s ling time leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.
The Beirut strike targeted three senior figures in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group associated with a series of high profile aircraft hijackings in the 1970s.
The left wing faction, which has not played a significant role in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, said that its military and security commanders in Lebanon, and a third member, were killed in the attack.
Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, and elsewhere continued on Monday as the Palestinian militant group Hamas said its leader in Lebanon was killed Monday in a strike on the country’s south.
Monday’s airstrike comes after Lebanon’s health ministry said 105 people had been killed and another 359 injured by Israeli strikes across the country on Sunday. More than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, it said, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes.
