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Mr. Qassem had been the Lebanese militant group’s longtime deputy. He replaces Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike last month.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, named Naim Qassem, its longtime deputy leader, as its new secretary general on Tuesday, replacing Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in Israeli airstrikes south of Beirut last month.
The naming of Mr. Qassem, who is around 70 years old, came amid Hezbollah’s deadliest war with Israel since the group was founded in the 1980s. In recent months, Israel has killed large numbers of Hezbollah leaders and commanders, including both Mr. Nasrallah and his presumed successor, Hashem Safieddine, as well as many of the group’s rank-and-file fighters.
A Hezbollah statement said Mr. Qassem had been chosen by the group’s Shura Council, a senior leadership body, “in adherence to the principles and goals of Hezbollah.” It did not say how many members took part in the process or whether there had been any other contenders.
Mr. Qassem now must lead his battered organization through tremendous challenges. Israel is committed to pushing the group’s forces and military infrastructure away from the Lebanon-Israel border and has destroyed some of its tunnels and bunkers, as well as many of its most sophisticated munitions.
Israel’s extensive bombing of communities near Beirut and in southern and eastern Lebanon where Hezbollah held sway has displaced more than a million people, most of them Shiite Muslims who have long looked to the group for protection and social services. Caring for them now is a struggle, and it is unclear how the party will rebuild their communities after the war ends.
Mr. Qassem has been Hezbollah’s primary voice since the killing of Mr. Nasrallah, appearing in video addresses from undisclosed locations. While he has hinted that Hezbollah is open to diplomacy aimed at ending the war, he has indicated no broader shift in the group’s direction, pledging that its fighters were ready to battle the Israeli troops invading southern Lebanon.
“We will confront any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land,” he said last month. “The forces of the resistance are ready for a ground engagement.”
Hezbollah began firing on Israeli positions in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel last year. Israel ramped up its attacks on Hezbollah last month, killing and injuring many of its leaders and fighters and drawing Lebanon into a broader war.
As the leader of Hezbollah, Mr. Qassem will have a key role in truce negotiations and may have to decide if Hezbollah will accept a cease-fire for Lebanon that is not linked to a similar agreement in Gaza. For the past year, Hezbollah has said it would stop fighting only when Israeli attacks on Gaza stopped, too.
Mr. Qassem was born in 1953 in Beirut and has been involved with Hezbollah since its formation, with Iran’s support, in the early 1980s. In 1991, under a previous secretary general, Abbas al-Musawi, Mr. Qassem was appointed the group’s deputy leader.
After Israel killed Mr. al-Musawi in 1992, Mr. Nasrallah was elevated to the top position and Mr. Qassem remained the deputy. He has never had the towering stature among Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East that Mr. Nasrallah did.
In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mr. Qassem because of his role in Hezbollah, which Israel, the United States and other countries consider a terrorist organization.
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