The Lebanese group Hezbollah has announced that it has chosen deputy leader Naim Qassem as the successor to the slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, AFP reported.
"Hezbollah's Shura Council has agreed to elect Sheikh Naim Qassem as Hezbollah's secretary general," the pro-Iranian group said, more than a month after Nasrallah's assassination.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant warned in a post on X that Kassem's appointment "is not for long."
In a separate post on the social network, Gallant wrote that "the countdown has begun."
Qassem was elected by the 5-member Shura Council (the group's main decision-making body) two days before the decision was announced.
After the war, a new Shura Council will be elected. The council can then choose a new leader or leave Kassem in the top job.
Qassem has long been in the shadow of Nasrallah, who is one of the most mysterious and influential figures in the Middle East.
Initially, Hashem Safidine, the head of Hezbollah's executive council, was chosen as Nasrallah's successor.
But he too was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut shortly after Nasrallah's death.
Hezbollah's Palestinian ally Hamas welcomed the election of the new leader. The Palestinian group pledged support for Hezbollah's new leadership.
Qassem, 71, co-founded Hezbollah in 1982 and has been the party's deputy secretary-general since 1991, the year before Nasrallah took over.
He was born in Beirut in 1953 in a family from the village of Kfar Filah on the border with Israel.
He is the most senior Hezbollah official to continue to appear in public since Nasrallah went largely into hiding after the group's 2006 war with Israel.
After Nasrallah's death in a major Israeli airstrike on September 27, Qassem made 3 televised addresses, speaking in more formal Arabic than the colloquial Lebanese preferred by Nasrallah.
With less charisma and oratorical skills than Nasrallah, Qassem said the group would soon name a new leader.
He argued that Hezbollah's military potential was intact and supported Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri's efforts to broker a ceasefire.
In his latest speech on October 15, the new leader said a ceasefire was the only way Israel could guarantee the return of residents of the northern part of the country. | BGNES
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