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Hezbollah chooses Qassim as new leader, Israel says he won’t last long
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Hezbollah chooses Qassim as new leader, Israel says he won’t last long

BEIRUT, October 29 (Reuters) – The name of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has been revealed Naim KasımAlthough he was elected as the new leader on Tuesday, Israel said his term would be “temporary” after killing his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut a month ago, a clear threat.

“Temporary appointment. It won’t last very long,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on X, along with a photo of Kasim.

Earlier, Iran-backed Hezbollah made a written statement and announced that the Shura Council had elected 71-year-old Qasim in accordance with its established mechanism for the election of the general secretary.

Qasim was appointed vice president of Hezbollah in 1991 by the armed group’s then-secretary-general, Abbas al-Musawi, and was killed in an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.

Kasım remained in office Nasrallah became a leader and has long been a leading spokesman for Hezbollah, giving interviews to foreign media, including last year when cross-border hostilities with Israel intensified.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, on September 27, and Hashim Safieddin, a senior Hezbollah figure – considered the most likely successor – was also killed in Israeli strikes a week later.

Since Nasrallah’s killing, Qasim has made three televised speeches; one of them said on October 8 that the armed group supported efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Many in Lebanon consider him to lack Nasrallah’s charisma and seriousness.

The Israeli government said in its official Arabic account of

“There is no solution other than dissolving this organization as a military force in Lebanon,” he wrote.

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily, Jana Choukeir and Clauda Tanios, Editing by William Maclean, Sharon Singleton and Gareth Jones)