Naim Qassem: ‘Hezbollah Achieved a Great Victory…’

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem confirmed that the party achieved a great victory over the Israeli occupation, and stressed the continuation of support for Palestine in various forms, and presented five pledges for the post-war period, including assistance in reconstruction, and completing the contract of constitutional institutions, most notably the election of a president for the republic.

On the third and fourth pledges, Qassem said; Our national work will be in cooperation with all forces that believe that the homeland belongs to all its sons, and we will also cooperate and dialogue with all forces that want to build a unified Lebanon on the basis of the Taif Agreement.

In his first speech after the ceasefire in Lebanon he said: “I decided to announce as a result, officially and clearly, we’ve one a great victory that exceeds the victory of  July 2006.”

Qassem added: “We won because we prevented the enemy from destroying Hezbollah, we won because we prevented it from ending the resistance and/or weakening it…”

Qassem also attributed the victory to the long duration of the Israeli aggression, the ferocity of the battle, and the sacrifices made by the Lebanese, in addition to the American and Western support provided to Israel.

Sheikh Qassem also pointed out that Israel suffered heavy losses in its battle with Lebanon, as a result of the strikes directed at it by Hezbollah, and hundreds of thousands were displaced from northern Israel, and because of the resistance’s steadfastness, Israel’s horizon was blocked.

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General added in his speech that in light of what he called the defeat surrounding Israel, the ceasefire agreement came, which he said was “not a treaty or a new agreement that requires the signature of countries, but rather a program of procedures related to the implementation of Resolution 1701.”

He said that the agreement confirms the withdrawal of the Israeli army from all the places it occupied and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south of the Litani River to assume its responsibility for security and for expelling the enemy from the region.” He also confirmed that Hezbollah will coordinate with the Lebanese army.

Sheikh Qassem also noted in his speech that “the agreement was made under the umbrella of Lebanese sovereignty, and we agreed to it with our heads held high in our right to defend ourselves.”

On 27 November, 2024, a ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and the Israeli army came into effect after months of mutual military operations between the two parties due to Hezbollah’s support for the Gaza front after Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa.

On the other hand, he stressed the continuation of the Lebanese resistance’s support for Palestine, and said: “Our support for Palestine will not stop and be in different forms.” In the same context, he recalled when Hezbollah began supporting the resistance in the Gaza Strip, it repeated it did not want war, but confirmed that it was ready if it was imposed on it.

Next stage

Sheikh Qassem spoke about the next stage, and made five pledges for the post-war stage, including assistance in reconstruction, and completing the constitutional institutions, most notably the election of a president for the republic, expressing his hope to achieve this on the scheduled date of 9 January, and said that the party’s presence in political and social life will be effective and influential in keeping with the country’s circumstances.

Regarding the third and fourth pledges, Qassem said: “Our national work will be in cooperation with all forces that believe that the homeland belongs to all its sons, and we will cooperate and speak with all forces that want to build a unified Lebanon on the basis of the Taif Agreement,” adding that “to those who bet on weakening the party, we regret that their bets failed.”

In his speech, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah also thanked Iran, Yemen and Iraq, according to Al Jazeera.

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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‘No Need For Your Crocodile Tears’
  • HebaHeba
  • August 13, 2026

By Ismail Al Sharif

“I’ll say it frankly: We should have exerted more pressure on Israel to adopt a different approach in Gaza” – Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to ex-President Joe Biden.

A striking phenomenon is recurring in American politics: Some presidents, cabinet members, and senior officials become more outspoken in their stances toward the Israeli occupation entity after leaving office, expressing regret for decisions that contributed to the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people.

This may be due to their liberation from diplomatic and partisan constraints, the pressures of Zionist lobbies, and the influence of tainted money, or perhaps their consciences awaken belatedly as they feel closer to death, realizing the enormity of the injustice they participated in or condoned.

Examples of this are numerous. Among the most prominent is former US President Jimmy Carter, who, after leaving office, shifted from a traditional pro-Zionist rhetoric to criticizing the Israeli occupation and its policies. Then there is Chuck Hagel, former US Secretary of Defense, who held the United States responsible for the Zionists’ continued aggression and described their practices as terrorism— but only after his retirement, of course.

Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense, also criticized war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him ungrateful.

More recently, Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor, and Antony Blinken, Biden’s lackluster Secretary of State, joined the ranks of those who have expressed regret. Both men have blood on their hands from the blood of Palestinian children and played a shameful role in supporting the Israeli entity during one of the greatest acts of genocide in modern history.

This was revealed in a lengthy investigation published in The New Yorker magazine last 20th July, titled “How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Against Gaza – and Iran,” with the subtitle: “Top officials from the previous Administration now express regret over their failure to rein in Netanyahu.”

However, this regret will not absolve them for they knew full well that the Zionists were committing genocide in Gaza. On 5 March, 2024, five months after the start of the genocide, Mirjana Spoljarić, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), sent a confidential letter to President Biden. The ICRC, in addition to its humanitarian mission, is obligated under the Geneva Conventions to provide states with information and advice to help them avoid committing war crimes.

In her letter, Spoljarić reminded President Biden that the organization had condemned the “horrific” massacre perpetrated by Hamas against Israelis on 7 October 2023 and that it had continued to press the movement “tirelessly” for the release of the “hostages” it was holding.

However, this time she appealed to Biden with “grave concern,” warning that Israel, which had continued to bombard Gaza with heavy munitions since that October, was ignoring the ICRC in an unprecedented manner.

In her letter, she wrote: “The way Israel conducts hostilities is inconsistent with the laws of armed conflict, particularly the obligations to protect civilians, to distinguish between military objectives on the one hand and civilians and civilian infrastructure on the other, to ensure the humane treatment of detainees and the dead, to protect medical facilities and personnel, and to provide and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.”

Despite these clear warnings, the United States remained a key partner in the genocide, providing weapons, money, and political and international cover to Israel. And now some of its officials come to shed crocodile tears for the children of Gaza!

I say to them: You have no right to repent now, after all these martyrs, after all these tragedies, to say: “We are sorry, we made a mistake.” You knew, and you had the power to pressure and prevent, but you chose to support, arm, and cover up. You bear the burden of what happened, and the blood of the children of Gaza will haunt you and pursue your names to the dustbin of history.

This piece by Ismail Al Sharif was originally published in the Arabic Addustour daily and reprinted in English in Crossfirearabia.com.

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Israel Arrest Palestinian Journalist and Drop Site Contributor Mohammed Awad

Israeli forces have arrested Palestinian journalist and Drop Site contributor, Mohammad Awad, 38, from his hometown of Bitunia, west Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, early Wednesday morning. Two other Palestinians were arrested after raiding and searching their homes in the nearby city of Al-Bireh, according to the Wafa news agency. Israeli soldiers first raided an apartment in a different neighborhood that Awad’s family had moved out of months earlier, breaking down the door only to find it empty, Awad’s wife Eman told Al-Araby. They then went on foot to the family’s current home and pounded on the door until Awad opened it. He was blindfolded, handcuffed behind his back, and forced to walk down five flights of stairs before being taken away in a military jeep in a scene captured on video. Awad’s reporting for Drop Site has covered escalating violence by Israeli settlers across the West Bank, including the burning of a mosque in Qusra, south of Nablus, and an attack in Masafer Yatta last week that wounded five Palestinians and burned four homes. With his detention, the number of Palestinian journalists held in Israeli prisons has risen to 40, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society. Israel has killed more than 260 journalists since it began its genocide in Gaza, two of whom died in Israeli prisons according to Drop Site News.

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