Beirut
\nHezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem said Tuesday the Lebanese group supported Lebanese efforts for a ceasefire with Israel, after two weeks of heavy Israeli strikes that killed its leader.
\n\u201cWe support the political efforts that (Lebanese Parliament Speaker) Nabih Berri is undertaking towards a ceasefire,\u201d Qassem said in a televised speech.
\nAfter nearly a year of cross-border clashes, Israel intensified its bombing campaign on September 23, killing more than 1,100 people and displacing over a million people since, according to official figures.
\nA massive Israeli strike killed the Shia party\u2019s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs on September 27.
\n\u201cOnce a ceasefire is achieved, diplomacy can look into all the other details,\u201d Qassem said on Tuesday.
\nPrime Minister Najib Mikati and Berri, a powerful Shia ally of Hezbollah, have for days been striving for an immediate truce between Israel and Hezbollah, independent of Gaza truce efforts.
\nIran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday, however, that Tehran backed efforts for a \u201csimultaneous\u201d ceasefire in both Lebanon and the Palestinian territory.
\nQassem, who has taken over until a new Hezbollah leader is announced, said the group\u2019s military capacities and leadership were still strong despite the heavy Israeli bombardment.
\n\u201cThe party\u2019s leadership and the resistance (Hezbollah) are meticulously organised\u2026 We have overcome painful blows,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cI would like to reassure you that our capabilities are fine,\u201d he said, speaking of \u201chundreds of rockets\u201d fired at Israel.
\nSince the Gaza Strip war began a year ago, Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in near-daily cross-border clashes, with Hezbollah saying it is acting in solidarity with its ally Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have stressed the need to secure the north near the border with Lebanon so uprooted residents can return home.
\n\u201cNetanyahu says he wants to bring back\u201d the displaced to their homes in northern Israel, Qassem said.
\nBut \u201cwe say that many more residents will be forced to flee\u201d their homes, he warned.
\nQassem added that an election for a new Hezbollah secretary-general would be held \u201caccording to the regulations\u201d and the result would then be announced, but he did not give a clear timeline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beirut Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem said Tuesday the Lebanese group supported Lebanese efforts for a ceasefire with Israel, after two weeks of heavy Israeli strikes that killed its leader. \u201cWe support the political efforts that (Lebanese Parliament Speaker) Nabih Berri is undertaking towards a ceasefire,\u201d Qassem said in a televised speech. After nearly a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":71345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71348,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71330\/revisions\/71348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}