BEIRUT: Hezbollah said Tuesday that Sheikh Naim Qassem has been appointed as the movement’s leader, replacing Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel last month.
More than a month after Nasrallah’s death, the group released a statement stating that “Hezbollah’s (governing) Shura Council agreed to elect… Sheikh Naim Qassem as secretary general.”
After being appointed the group’s deputy leader in 1991, Qassem has long operated under Nasrallah’s shadow.
The leader of Hezbollah’s executive council, Hashem Safieddine, was first predicted to succeed Nasrallah.
Shortly after Nasrallah’s death, however, he was also murdered in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut.
According to a Hezbollah-affiliated source, Qassem was elected two days prior, AFP said.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that following the conflict, a new Shura Council would be chosen.
According to the source, the council may then decide to retain Qassem in the top position or pick a new leader.
In a statement, Hamas declared that it “considers this election evidence of the party’s recovery from the targeting” of its leaders and promised “support for the new leadership.”
However, Israel swiftly retaliated, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announcing on X that Qassem’s appointment would not be permanent.
“Transient appointment. Gallant shared a picture of Qassem on X along with the caption, “Not for long.”
Qassem stated in his most recent statement on October 15 that Israel could only ensure the return of its citizens to the north by implementing a ceasefire.
Sheikh Naim Qassem: Who is he?
The 71-year-old Qassem was a founding member of Hezbollah in 1982 and had served as the party’s deputy secretary general since 1991, the year before Nasrallah assumed leadership.
He was born in 1953 in Beirut to a family from the Israeli border hamlet of Kfar Fila.
Abbas al-Musawi, who was murdered in an Israeli helicopter attack the following year, named him deputy chief of Hezbollah.
After Nasrallah generally disappeared after the 2006 flare-up with Israel, Qassem was the highest ranking Hezbollah figure to continue appearing in public.
Even as cross-border skirmishes with Israel raged over the past year, he has been one of the group’s main spokespersons for a long time, giving interviews to international media.
Speaking in more formal Arabic than Nasrallah’s preferred colloquial Lebanese, Qassem has given three broadcast speeches since Nasrallah was killed in a major Israeli airstrike on September 27.
