A month after the assassination, on September 27, of Hassan Nasrallah in a gigantic Israeli bombing in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah has a new secretary general: Naïm Qassem, 71 years old. In recent weeks, he has been acting chief of Iran’s allied armed forces. His appointment by the Shura Council, the party’s decision-making body, was announced on Tuesday, October 29.
A well-known face of Hezbollah, dressed in the white robe and turban of the Shiite clergy, the official held the position of deputy secretary general of Hezbollah for more than thirty years. He was not, however, a designated successor to Hassan Nasrallah, but the campaign to eliminate Hezbollah executives led by the Jewish state focused on potential candidates, such as Hachem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s cousin, with close ties to Tehran, assassinated earlier of October.
Naïm Qassem was responsible for the speech at the last public event organized by Hezbollah to gather its base, at the gates of the capital, on September 22: the funeral of Ibrahim Akil, the leader of the elite Radwan unit, murdered along with other military leaders in an Israeli attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut two days earlier. Visibly affected, the official nevertheless affirmed that the party’s resilience was intact. The day after the funeral, the Israeli army launched a massive offensive on Lebanon, whose brilliance took the country of the Cedars by surprise, and which left more than 1,750 dead and more than 1 million displaced.
“The countdown has begun”
By electing a new wartime leader, Hezbollah seeks to show a form of continuity. A message addressed in particular to his followers, disoriented (some refuse to believe in the death of Hassan Nasrallah) and tested while the Shiite majority regions pay the high price of the conflict: the intense Israeli attacks continue against the valley of the Bekaa. and southern Lebanon.
The appointment of Naïm Qassem is also a signal sent on the domestic scene, where his opponents are counting on his weakening, but also at the regional level. “Hezbollah wants to say that it will do everything possible to continue existing, it is not threatened with imminent disappearance. Naïm Qassem could be a transitional secretary general, before a new balance of power is established. Hezbollah will have to make difficult concessions, although it considers itself an invincible party, and Naïm Qassem could guarantee this redefinition.”estimates Ali Mourad, a professor and political activist who competed, in the South, on a civil society list opposing the party, during the 2022 legislative elections.
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