Hezbollah’s New Chief: ‘We Will Not Retreat’

The new Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said in his first speech, after becoming secretary-general he “will continue on the path of the martyr Hassan Nasrallah, and implement the war plan he developed with the leadership of the resistance, and deal according to the developments of each stage.”

In a videotaped speech, Wednesday, Qassem stressed “supporting Gaza is a duty to confront the danger of the occupation on the entire region from the gate of Gaza, and its people as they have the right to be supported by everyone. 

The question should not be directed to the party about the reasons for its support for Gaza, but to others about the reasons for their lack of support of the people of Gaza,” he added.

Hezbollah “does not fight on behalf of anyone, but to protect Lebanon, liberate our land, and support Gaza,” stressing that “Iran supports our project and does not want anything from us, and our convictions are shared,” he stressed.

“For 11 months, we said we do not want war, but we are ready if it is imposed on us, and we in Lebanon do not fight on behalf of Iran or to implement its project, but to protect and liberate our land,” Qassem continued. 

Qassem described the head of the Hamas political bureau  martyr Yahya Sinwar as “an icon of heroism for Palestine and the free people of the world, and he resisted until his last breath.”

“The Lebanese resistance was created to liberate the land and confront the occupation and its expansionist intentions,” noting “the resistance expelled the occupation from Lebanon, not international resolutions,” he added.

Qassem stated “the field proves and confirms the party’s recovery from the attacks it was subjected to because it is a large and cohesive institution with great capabilities and a true jihadist history, and it was growing stronger year after year and gaining more experience.”

Qassem stressed “the enemy must know that its bombing of our villages and cities will not make us retreat, and the resistance is strong and was able to deliver a drone to Netanyahu’s room.”

Qassem criticized western collusion, saying: “This war is not only [Israeli], but an [Israeli]-American-European global war in which all the capabilities to eliminate the resistance and the peoples of the region are used in all brutality, genocide and criminality.”

Since September 23, the occupation forces have expanded the scope of the genocide they have been committing in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to include most areas of Lebanon, including the capital Beirut, through unprecedentedly violent and intense airstrikes, and have also begun a ground incursion into the south, disregarding international warnings and UN resolutions.

The Israeli occupation army, supported by the United States and Europe, continues its aggression on the Gaza Strip for the second year in a row, as its aircraft bomb the vicinity of hospitals, buildings, towers and homes of Palestinian civilians, destroying them over the heads of their residents, and preventing the entry of water, food, medicine and fuel.

The aggression has left about 145,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that has killed dozens of children and elderly people, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Amnesty Condemns Netanyahu’s Visit to Hungry

Responding to reports that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has invited and plans to host Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hungary on Wednesday, Erika Guevara-Rosas the head of Global Research, Advocacy and Policy of Amnesty International said:

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is an alleged war criminal, who is accused of using starvation as a method of warfare, intentionally attacking civilians and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.  As a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hungary must arrest him if he travels to the country and hand him over to the Court. Any trip he takes to an ICC member state that does not end in his arrest would embolden Israel to commit further crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“Netanyahu’s reported visit should be seen as a cynical effort to undermine the ICC and its work, and is an insult to the victims of these crimes who are looking to the Court for justice. Hungary’s invitation shows contempt for international law and confirms that alleged war criminals wanted by the ICC are welcome on the streets of a European Union member state.

“Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary must not become a bellwether for the future of human rights in Europe. European and global leaders must end their shameful silence and inaction, and call on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu during a visit which would make a mockery of the suffering of Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its war crimes in other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its entrenched system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls.

“Amnesty International calls on the ICC Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute all Israel’s crimes. Hungary should equally do so by applying universal jurisdiction principles. Powerful leaders, like Netanyahu, accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity, must no longer enjoy the prospect of perpetual impunity.”

“The ICC was established to ensure accountability for victims of genocide and other crimes under international law, and so that crimes which shock the human conscience would “never again” be accompanied by impunity. In ‘bringing power to justice’, the ICC is now facing a global backlash from powerful leaders seeking to undermine the international rule of law and stamp out the prospect of accountability for the most powerful.”

Background

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as al-Qassam brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Since then, leaders from ICC member states France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland have stated or implied that they would not arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he travelled to their respective countries. The United States has also enacted sanctions against the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan.

A cornerstone principle of the ICC’s founding Rome Statute is that all individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants must be arrested and surrendered to the Court without recourse to immunity when they are within the jurisdiction of ICC member states, including on their territory.

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Israel Violates Syria With 11 Air Raids

Israel will not leave Syria alone! Israeli raids, Wednesday evening, struck the Scientific Research Institute in the Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus according to Sana, the Syrian news agency.

https://twitter.com/warintel4u/status/1907509948881502435

Israeli warplanes went on to strike the Hama military base with more than 11 air raids, Sana pointed out. later reports show that the military airport was targeted 17 times.

The Israeli Channel 12 added that an additional target was the T4 military airport in rural Homs.

The Israeli raids, almost daily, started months ago on Syria and its capital, Damascus, and increased after 9 December 2024 when there was a change of regime in the country.

Residents in Damascus said they heard loud explosions after the intense air raids that targeted the scientific building in Barzeh.

But before that Israel has been conducting deadly air raids, literally mounting to thousands on Syria for years under the now ousted Baath regime of President Bashar Al Assad.

Israel then claimed it was targeting Hezbollah and Iranian bases but there were many deaths and injuries.

Israel occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights after the 1967 Arab-Israel war, and took advantage of the fall of the regime and occupying the country’s buffer zone and declaring the collapse of the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two sides.

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