Naim Qassem has been announced by Hezbollah as the new head of the group barely a day after an announcement of his promotion from the post of deputy leader was made on Tuesday. Qassem replaced Hassan Nasrallah, who died recently in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
The death of Nasrallah, who passed away at the end of September, brought about a question of leadership in the Lebanon-based armed group as many officials have been targeted since Israel’s intensified focus on Hezbollah.
In its statement, Hezbollah said Qassem was elected based on his “adherence to the principles and goals of Hezbollah,” adding,
“We hope from Almighty God that he will guide us to what is good and beneficial for this dear entity, its organization, its Islamic resistance, and its jihad.”.
In the eyes of many, Nasrallah’s death was a major blow to Hezbollah because he had been the recognizable face of the Lebanese Shia movement. Furthermore, their leadership was being drained by Israel’s current activities.
The most notable examples include the case of Nasrallah’s cousin, Hashem Safieddine, who previously was discussed as a likely candidate to replace Nasrallah and who was killed in an Israeli attack just sometime after the assassination of Nasrallah.
Qassem, now 71, has often been described as Hezbollah’s “number two.” He is deeply steeped in Shia political activism, being one of the group’s original founders in its early days in the 1980s. When Nasrallah began living undercover after the 2006 confrontation with Israel, Qassem continued to enjoy visibility in public life.
Since becoming leader, Qassem has given three public speeches in classical Arabic, not dialectical Lebanese Arabic, as was Nasrallah’s style. On Sept 30, he gave a defiant speech whose unmistakable tone was that Hezbollah would defeat Israel on the battlefield.
