Hezbollah elects new leader Naim Qassem to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, Israel warns he is only ‘temporary’

Hezbollah has elected a new leader to replace long-serving boss Hassan Nasrallah after he was killed in an Israel airstrike over a month ago.

On Tuesday, the Lebanese militant group announced that its governing Shura Council has chosen long-serving deputy chief Naim Qassem to succeed Nasrallah, in accordance with its established mechanism for choosing a secretary general.

“Hezbollah’s Shura Council agreed to elect … Sheikh Naim Qassem as secretary-general of Hezbollah,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.

Israel responded to the announcement with an apparent threat against the long-serving Hezbollah figure, saying Qassem’s tenure would be “temporary”.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted on X a photo of Qassem, writing: “Temporary appointment. Not for long.”

Qassem, 71, was one of Hezbollah’s founders in 1982. He was appointed as Hezbollah’s deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group’s then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Qassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader, and has long been one of Hezbollah’s leading spokesmen, conducting interviews with foreign media, including while cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.

Nasrallah was killed on September 27 in an Israeli air attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh.

At the time, senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine was considered his most likely successor, but he was killed in Israeli strikes a week later.

Since Nasrallah’s killing, Qassem has given three televised addresses, including one on October 8 in which he said the armed group supported efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon.

He is considered by many in Lebanon to lack the charisma and gravitas of Nasrallah, Reuters reports.

In its official Arabic account on X, the Israeli government said: “His tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this terrorist organisation if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine.”

“There is no solution in Lebanon except to dismantle this organisation as a military force.”

Qassem was born in Beirut in 1953 to a family from the village of Kfar Fila which shares the border with Israel.

— With Reuters