Hezbollah chief says group will hold out for ‘suitable’ ceasefire terms

Hezbollah’s newly named leader Naim Kassem said in his first public comments that the militant group will keep fighting in its ongoing war with Israel until it is offered ceasefire terms it deems acceptable.

“If the Israelis decide to stop the aggression, we say that we accept, but according to the conditions that we see as suitable,” Mr Kassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a pre-recorded televised address.

“We will not beg for a cease fire as we will continue (fighting)… no matter how long it takes.”

The speech came as international mediators have launched a new push for negotiated ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza.

More than 2,790 people have been killed and 12,700 wounded in Lebanon since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel, drawing retaliation, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Some 1.2 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Lebanon according to government estimates.

Mr Kassem, a cleric and founding member of the Lebanese militant group, was named on Tuesday to replace former longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in late September.

Mr Kassem had served as Mr Nasrallah’s deputy for more than three decades.

Several other high-ranking officials with the group, including Mr Nasrallah’s presumptive successor, Hashem Safieddine, have also been killed in recent weeks, as the Israel-Hezbollah war has escalated in Lebanon.

Mr Kassem said the series of blows dealt to the group in recent weeks – including pager and walkie-talkie explosions that targeted Hezbollah members in mid-September and the assassination of Mr Nasrallah – had “hurt” the group, but he asserted that the group had been able to reorganise its ranks within eight days after Mr Nasrallah’s death.

“Hezbollah’s capabilities are still available and compatible with a long war,” he said.

He pointed to the steady stream of Israeli soldiers wounded and killed in southern Lebanon since Israeli forces launched a ground invasion on October 1, and to a drone launched by Hezbollah that hit the home of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month.

Mr Netanyahu was not harmed.

“So far no project has been put forward that Israel agrees on and is acceptable for us to negotiate it,” Mr Kassem said.

Mr Kassem said Hezbollah is carrying out plans laid out by its former chief in the ongoing war.

There was no immediate Israeli response to the speech.

As he was speaking, a series of Israeli airstrikes pounded the eastern city of Baalbek.

The Israeli army had earlier issued an evacuation warning for residents in the entire eastern Lebanese city of Baalbeck, including the ancient Roman temple complex, inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage site.

The order also included surrounding areas and key routes in the Bekaa Valley.

On October 6, an Israeli strike hit some 700 metres away from the ancient citadel, which houses two of the largest Roman temples in the world.