Lebanon’s Hezbollah will choose a successor to its slain leader Sajed Hassan Nasrallah “at the first opportunity” and continue fighting Israel, the Iranian-backed group’s deputy leader, Naim Kazem, said on Monday.
He was speaking in a televised address, the first appearance by a Hezbollah official since Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital on Friday.
”We will choose the general secretary of the party as early as possible, and we will fill the leadership and positions on a permanent basis,” Kazem said, speaking in front of wooden boards from an unknown location.
Kazem said that Hezbollah fighters continued to fire rockets up to 150 kilometers deep into Israeli territory and that they were ready to face any possible Israeli land incursion.
”What we do is the minimum. We know the battle could be long. We will win as we won in the liberation in 2006 before the Israeli enemy,” he said, referring to the last bloody conflict between the two enemies.
Kazem, who urged supporters to be patient, said that Hezbollah is dealing with the killing of its cadres by appointing replacements.
”Israel was not able to reach our military capabilities, and what its media is saying about targeting the majority of medium and long-range capabilities is a dream that they have not achieved and will never achieve,” he said, referring to Hezbollah’s rockets.
He also blamed the United States (U.S.) for providing what he described as “boundless” support to Israel, Reuters reports.
