Israel has threatened the new leader of the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, hours after it was announced that he would replace former leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in late September in an Israeli attack on the outskirts of Beirut.
The Shura Council, the governing body of Hezbollah, "agreed to elect Sheikh Naim Qassem as the Secretary General of Hezbollah," the Shia Islamist organization, which is at war with Israel, announced.
"Temporary installation. Not for long," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said on the Ix platform next to a photo of Kasem, adding in Hebrew: "The countdown has begun."
Kasem, as reported by the Reuters agency, was appointed as the deputy head of Hezbollah in 1991, and he was appointed by the then secretary general of the organization, Abbas al-Mousavi, who was killed in an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.
Qassem remained in that post when Nasrallah became leader and has long been Hezbollah's leading spokesman and gave interviews to foreign media even during the cross-border hostilities with Israel last year. Since the assassination of Nasrallah, Qassem has made three televised addresses and said that the armed organization Hezbollah supports efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon.
In that country, it is considered that he does not have the charisma and significance that Nasrallah had.
"His mandate could be the shortest in the history of that terrorist organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safiyedin," the Government of Israel announced on the official account in Arabic on the X platform.
Safiyedin, who was expected to replace Nasrallah, was also recently killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The message from the Israeli army adds that the only solution in Lebanon is to destroy Hezbollah as a military force.
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