
️Highlights from Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem's latest speech:
• "The state's failure to confront can be justified by its weakness and inability, but it cannot be justified that the state becomes a tool for Israel through pressure and by making government decisions that weaken the internal situation in the face of aggression."
• "Israel has clearly stated, along with the United States, that they want to strengthen the army in order to disarm Hezbollah and fight it, and they want the state to abolish the party’s various institutions and eliminate the existence of the resistance, its people, and all who support it."
• "This is not a battle for [Israel’s] 'northern security,' but an aggression aimed at devouring Lebanon and destroying its strength, its people, and its resistance."
• "We reject negotiations with the usurping entity, and these negotiations are futile and require a Lebanese consensus to shift the direction from refusing negotiations to direct negotiations."
• "This is part of a series of free concessions made by the authority, and practical evidence has shown that they are making concessions that humiliate us and cause the government and the Lebanese people to lose."
• "You say you want a ceasefire, but what do they say? And what cards do you actually hold?"
• "Let the November agreement be implemented, and enough of the authority disavowing the resistance and treating it as an enemy, at a time when it should be supporting it and benefiting from its capabilities."
• "How strange you are! By God, you neither fight nor allow anyone to fight, you neither confront nor allow anyone to confront. Go and look at the Israeli enemy, everyone is fighting."
• "The only path that achieves sovereignty is the implementation of the agreement, by completely stopping the aggression, the immediate withdrawal from all territories, the release of prisoners, and the return of people to their villages and cities, to the last house along the border strip and Lebanon’s borders, and reconstruction must take place through an official decision and international support, and with responsibility shared by all supporters … These five points must be implemented first, and then we Lebanese know how to make decisions."
• "Some ask: if the aggression continues, how long do we remain? We are faced with two options: surrender, which will not happen, or confrontation."
• "I call on the Lebanese government to reverse course, as this is part of Lebanon’s sovereignty.
• The political authority is capable of doing so, and then cooperation between the authority, the resistance, and the people will increase, enabling us to protect the country."
• "Do not distort the facts; we are fighting a clear enemy. This is Lebanon’s (not Iran’s) war against the Israeli–American enemy, not anyone else’s war. Our land is occupied and our youth are being killed … Where are these so-called ‘others’ wars’?”
• "We share with others (Iran and allies) the understanding that ‘Israel’ is our enemy, and this is a significant point."
• "If only Arab and Islamic countries and others would agree to participate in confronting this aggression and arrogance."
• "I address some Gulf states, especially Kuwait and Bahrain: we have no cells in your countries, so what is your interest in fabricating accusations against us? … We have denied three times the existence of any cells in these countries, yet this accusation continues to be repeated without any evidence."
• "Our fighters are present on the battlefield, writing the greatest epics. There is a remarkable, legendary performance, and we have those who are more honorable and greater than those brave men … We cannot meet the number of those wishing to go to the front."
• "Victory is to inflict pain on the enemy, and we are inflicting it; victory is that it does not achieve its objectives and will not achieve them; and victory is that we do not allow it to entrench itself, and it will not entrench itself."