Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem gave a speech on Monday to mark the onset of the Islamic month of Shaban, during which tradition holds that Hussain—the central figure of Shiism—was born. However, Qassem’s speech dealt with more than religious affairs; he also announced the funerals of key Hezbollah leaders and provided the group’s followers with a framework through which to interpret current events.
Qassem began his speech by highlighting the religious significance of the month of Shaban before offering his now-customary salutations to the Palestinian people. He expressed gratitude for their collective and individual “sacrifices,” condolences for the loss of Qassam Brigades commander Mohammad Deif and his deputy Marwan Issa, and congratulations for their “endurance.”
Qassem then addressed the situation in Lebanon, beginning with the Lebanese government’s approval of the ceasefire’s extension until February 18 and the resulting continued presence of Israeli forces in south Lebanon. As a result, he said, Hezbollah considers “the Lebanese state completely responsible” for pressuring Israel—through international partners—to “cease its violations and this aggression.” Lebanon, Qassem said, should even bring pressure to bear upon the United States, “which directs Israeli policies and is implicated in all of Israel’s crimes, including every aggression against Lebanon, Palestine, and the region,” but will consider itself bound by an agreement that it sponsored.
Qassem inaccurately claimed that the locations of recent Israeli airstrikes fell outside of the territorial ambit of the November 27 ceasefire agreement. Therefore, he stressed that Israel’s continued military operations in Lebanon, including airstrikes against Hezbollah assets, were acts of “aggression”—rather than justified actions in light of the ceasefire agreement’s requirement for Hezbollah to relocate north of the Litani River and Lebanon and the oversight committee’s failure to enforce the deal’s terms.
Qassem then sought to account for Hezbollah’s inaction against Israel. Hezbollah, he said, was exercising patience in the face of Israel’s behaviors to “give the [Lebanese] state the full opportunity to implement the ceasefire and [Israel’s] adherence to it.” Essentially characterizing Hezbollah as a rear-guard auxiliary group to the Lebanese government, he stressed this task was Beirut’s “responsibility,” whereas “the resistance,” as a “choice and path,” would only act when it deemed the timing and conditions appropriate.
Qassem then turned to domestic Lebanese politics, and what he described as a “hostile campaign against Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, and the resistance as a whole … sponsored by America, Great Power, and Israel.” Qassem questioned the motivations behind domestic opponents’ insistence that the group had lost the recent conflict with Israel. “Why [do they say Hezbollah was defeated] … [when] our people know they won in certain regards and lost and sacrificed in others,” he asked, even as Hezbollah “has not spoken of unmitigated victory?”
“We spoke of a victory tied to endurance and continuation, of breaking the Israeli invasion and preventing the demise of the resistance. These matters are goals we accomplished, which are very important, and a victory,” Qassem said while conceding the organization’s many losses. Here, the Hezbollah secretary-general was falling back on a narrative thread common to all his speeches: exaggerating Israel’s Lebanon war aims, taking credit for preventing Israel from achieving goals it never set, and thus claiming victory. In that vein, Qassem insisted that Hezbollah and its supporters were holding their heads high in “glory” for their “legendary endurance, which has few parallels by mujahidin.”
He continued with this line of dramatic exaggeration by painting the return of south Lebanese residents to villages still occupied by Israel as one of civilians triumphing over an army determined to eliminate them. “Who stood against Israeli tyranny/power [jabaroot], backed by the Americans and the world’s mightiest?” Qassem asked rhetorically. “This noble people, from among whom martyrs fell, but they did not fear. Who were wounded but carried on. Who were detained but did not retreat.” This “popular liberation,” said Qassem, “complemented the jihadi armed resistance” and “integrates with the [Lebanese] Army[’s]” actions, by denying Israel the possibility of a foothold in south Lebanon.
Addressing the naysayers focused on “the number of martyrs, blood, and destruction,” Qassem asked his audience to instead “focus on this endurance, liberation, the most noble of people and guardians of the nation.” Those people, Qassem insisted, “will lead you to glory, liberation, and dignity,” whereas Hezbollah’s opponents were leading Lebanon, at Washington’s behest, to “subordination.” He also claimed this situation would ensure Hezbollah’s endurance.
“We have principles and dignity,” Qassem explained. “Those who have principles do not abandon them when they are wounded or hurt. Those with principles do not abandon them when pressured by oppressors or,” in a subtle reference to Jews derived from the Quran, “those wicked people who desire to [spread] corruption in the land.” He elaborated on the group’s ostensible resilience and motivations:
We are not enticed by gains, or by the benefits to be gained by subservience to America. We are not tempted by material gains; the gain of them allowing us to remain alive so we may eat and sleep while they pressure us regarding all of our choices. This does not tempt us. We demand dignity and pride even if all will be killed. Kill us, for our people will [thus] become increasingly aware. This is what Imam Khomeini, may God sanctify his noble soul, used to say.
Now, Qassem insisted, was the time to continue countering Israel to prevent it from becoming a permanent reality. Hezbollah, he said, “will remain. Its banner will remain held high, and we will neither change our direction nor our convictions—because they are based on justice.” Meanwhile, since the United States and Israel ostensibly “want to corrupt the world and take control over everything,” his group would continue to oppose them. By contrast, those insisting that displaced south Lebanese had needlessly risked their lives by returning home prematurely and should have awaited Israel’s imminent withdrawal were “spreading an Israeli narrative” and were “better off being silent.”
Qassem then addressed the delayed funeral of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, an event Hezbollah intends to title, “We are Committed [to a Covenant].” He heaped endless and exaggerated praise upon Nasrallah, describing him as “an unparalleled human being,” in line with Hezbollah’s canonization of Nasrallah—a posthumous inflation of the deceased secretary-general’s cult of personality to retain the vast support he attracted for the group during his lifetime.
“We have chosen February 23, a Sunday,” for Nasrallah’s funeral, believing security conditions would be suitable at that time. Hezbollah, he said, intended the event to be:
[A] grand and massive funeral, attracting domestic and foreign figures, to be attended, God willing, by political forces, parties, officials, and other concerned parties. We hope it will be a grand funeral befitting this great figure—which, I believe, will confirm the message of his eminence the martyred sayyed, the message of the most preeminent of the martyrs of the umma, and it will have a great impact.
Qassem also announced Hezbollah would hold a simultaneous funeral for Nasrallah’s would-be heir, Hashem Saffiedine, who was killed on October 3, 2024—mere days after Nasrallah. Qassem said Saffiedine, whom he addressed as “the Hashemi martyr,” would also be buried with the honors due a Hezbollah secretary-general, because, Qassem claimed, he was elected as the third holder of that office in the wake of Nasrallah’s assassination a week prior. The two leaders, however, would be buried in separate places: Nasrallah in Beirut, in a tract of land between the old and new airport roads, and Saffiedine in his hometown of Deir Qanoun in south Lebanon. Hezbollah, he said, had formed a committee to handle all matters related to the funerals.
Qassem ended his speech by beseeching his audience and Hezbollah’s supporters not to mark the occasion with gunfire—in accordance with Nasrallah’s instructions—and called on Lebanese authorities to arrest those who violated this mandate. Qassem also distanced himself from a provocative, pro-Hezbollah motorcycle-borne procession that began in Dahiyeh but traveled to other, non-Shiite areas of Beirut to harass and intimidate residents. He called on the group’s supporters to refrain from such actions “even in Dahiyeh,” actions which he said “do not serve national or Islamic unity, or the resistance, or the path we are on, or liberation.”
Qassem also cast doubt on these provocateurs’ allegiance to Hezbollah, suggesting they were plants who raised “our flags simply to implicate us and the Amal movement [in their unruly behavior] to claim we gave them orders.” Not only was Hezbollah unconnected to these individuals, Qassem stressed, but he again “call[ed] upon the security and judicial authorities to undertake all necessary procedures to halt and prosecute those who fire guns and those who enter other locales in a provocative and harmful manner.”
