Hezbollah promises to fight against Israeli ground forces

For the first time since Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a massive Israeli bomb attack south of Beirut at the weekend, the movement’s deputy leader has spoken publicly.

Naim Qassem promised on Monday that the group will continue the fight against Israel also during a possible ground invasion. But he did not give a date for when the group will choose a new leader, or when Nasrallah will be buried.

– We will elect a new general secretary for the party as soon as possible, said Qassem.

At the same time he was giving a televised speech from an unknown location, Israel continued its attacks on Beirut and other places in the country. Over 1,000 people have been killed in the past two weeks, while around 6,000 have been injured, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Palestinian exile leaders killed

Whether Israel chooses to enter Lebanon with ground forces and possibly reoccupy parts of southern Lebanon is currently unclear. But Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made a statement on Monday suggesting that a ground invasion is being planned.

– The elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the end. To ensure that the citizens of the north can return safely to their homes, we are going to use all our capacity, including you, Gallant said when he visited Israeli soldiers in northern Israel, close to the Lebanese border.

After killing Nasrallah, Israel has carried out new targeted attacks, this time against Palestinian exile leaders. Among those killed are three leaders of the People’s Front for Palestinian Liberation (PFLP) group as well as the leader of Palestinian Hamas in Lebanon, Sherif Abu al-Amin.

While the latter was killed along with several family members in a Palestinian refugee camp in the city of Tire in southern Lebanon, the three PFLP leaders were killed in an attack against a block of flats in Beirut city.

Met Iranian general

According to Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Nasrallah was killed while in a meeting with four other men: Iranian general Abbas Nilforoushan and Hezbollah’s military leader in the south Ali Karake, as well as two other Hezbollah members.

He rejected Israeli claims that more than 20 of the group’s members were killed.

Hezbollah is closely linked to Iran, which supports a number of movements fighting Israel in the region. But Iran denies that it is appropriate to use Iranian soldiers to defend Lebanese territory.

– There is no need to send additional forces or volunteers from the Islamic Republic of Iran, said spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran, Nasser Kanaani, on Monday.

According to Kanani, both Lebanon and fighters in the Palestinian territories “have the capacity and strength to defend themselves against the attacker”.

– Stor destabilization

Russia is among those who are strongly critical of Israel’s killing of Nasrallah.

– The Russian side condemns such actions, which we believe have led to a significant destabilization of the situation in the region, says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

– The most important thing is that such indiscriminate bombing of residential areas in Lebanon leads to a large number of people killed, which will inevitably lead to a humanitarian disaster like the one we see in Gaza, says Peskov, and expresses “deep concern about the situation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called the killing of Nasrallah a political liquidation, and the Russian Foreign Ministry is asking Israel to stop the attacks on Lebanon immediately.

Will fulfill UN resolution

Lebanon’s acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati also made a statement on Monday. In a press conference, he said that the Lebanese government army is ready to move south, to the areas south of the Litani River, which are currently under Hezbollah control.

With the statement, Mikati promises that the government is ready to implement UN resolution 1701 in connection with a ceasefire with Israel. The resolution demands that the government army be deployed in today’s Hezbollah-controlled areas in the south of the country and right down to the border with Israel. The river Litani is about 30 kilometers from the border.

The resolution was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council in 2006 after a month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel. The resolution was intended to end the war and eventually create lasting peace along the border between Lebanon and Israel, but several points in the resolution have never been implemented.

Many flee to Syria

According to the Lebanese government, the war has also displaced 1 million people.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, about 100,000 of these have made their way to Syria, among them both Syrian refugees and Lebanese citizens who fear that they could be hit by an Israeli air strike at any time.

The losses suffered by Hezbollah are the biggest since the Iranian Revolutionary Guard established the group in 1982 to fight Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon.

On Monday, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said 45 people were killed in the weekend attack on the southern Lebanese town of Ain-Deleb. It also reports that six rescue workers from Hezbollah have been killed in an Israeli attack.