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The new leader of Hezbollah, Naïm Qassem, displayed his determination on Wednesday to continue the fight against Israel and strike it on its soil. This despite the blows inflicted on his movement by the Israeli army after more than a month of open war.
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06 November 2024 – 17:49
(Keystone-ATS) Shortly after the broadcast of Naïm Qassem’s pre-recorded speech, the Israeli army carried out an attack, after an evacuation order, on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where it had killed his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah on September 27. At the same time, missile warning sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, with the Israeli army recording 120 projectiles fired during the day by Hezbollah from Lebanon.
Naïm Qassem, who spoke before the results of the American presidential election, also affirmed that his movement was not counting on its outcome to achieve a ceasefire with Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who had increased his gestures in favor of Israel.
Tens of thousands of fighters
“We have tens of thousands of trained resistance fighters who can confront” Israel “and hold on,” Naïm Qassem further assured.
Israel, which has been carrying out a campaign of intensive attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon since September 23, and since September 30 a ground offensive in the south of the country targeting it, “will cry out (in pain) under the missiles and drones, no part of the Israeli entity is inaccessible,” he threatened.
The movement had previously claimed to have fired missiles targeting a military base near Ben-Gurion airport, south of Tel Aviv. Traffic was not affected, nor were the runways damaged, according to the Israel Airports Authority.
Hezbollah, whose leadership has been largely weakened since the end of September, ensures that its men are repelling Israeli incursions in the border areas, and announces daily shots on Israel.
The search for survivors in Barja
The Israeli army carried out attacks on Wednesday in the northeast and south of Lebanon, other Hezbollah strongholds, notably targeting certain neighborhoods in the southern town of Nabatiyeh which it had ordered to be evacuated, according to the press agency. Lebanese Ani.
In Barja, south of Beirut, an Israeli attack caused a residential building to collapse on Tuesday evening, killing at least 20 people, according to the Ministry of Health. On Wednesday, searches continued to find possible survivors, according to an AFP journalist.
The victims, mainly women and children, had taken refuge there fleeing Israeli bombings on their village in southern Lebanon.
More than 2,600 dead
At war in the Gaza Strip against Hamas since its attack on October 7, 2023, Israel also attacked Hezbollah after more than a year of cross-border exchanges of fire with this formation, allied with the Palestinian Islamist movement, which displaced some 60,000 inhabitants of northern Israel.
More than 2,600 people have been killed across Lebanon since September 23, a minister told AFP.
To Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army continues its operations in Jabalia (north), where it has been carrying out a deadly offensive for a month, claiming to have “eliminated dozens of terrorists” on Tuesday. Israeli forces also indicated having killed “terrorists” in Rafah (south).
The Israeli offensive launched in retaliation in Gaza left 43,391 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, and caused a humanitarian disaster.
United against the “axis of evil”
In the midst of war on these two fronts, Mr. Netanyahu created a surprise on Tuesday evening by dismissing his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, with whom relations had notably become strained around the question of the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews – rejected by the Prime Minister’s far-right allies – and that of a truce with Hamas to free the hostages still held in Gaza.
After his dismissal, Mr. Gallant reiterated that Israel must prepare for “painful compromises” to obtain the return of the hostages. Hamas welcomed the ouster of this former general considered a “hawk” in the fight against the Islamist movement.
Appointed in his place, the outgoing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel Katz, welcomed Donald Trump’s victory on “.
“We just need” the future president to “give us weapons” to “end the war,” reacts Yossi Mizrachi, a 51-year-old Israeli fruit seller in a market in Jerusalem.
“I hope Trump will find a solution, we need someone strong like Trump to end the war,” says Mamdouh Al-Jadba, a 60-year-old Gazans displaced by the fighting in Gaza City.
