Beirut, 30 Nov

The head of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, pledged on Friday to coordinate closely with the Lebanese army on the ceasefire deal with Israel, which he said the terror group had agreed to “with heads held high.”

Qassem also declared that Hezbollah had achieved a “great victory” against Israel that “surpasses that of July 2006,” referring to the last time the terror group went to war against Israel.

“We won because we prevented the enemy from destroying Hezbollah… [and] from annihilating or weakening the resistance,” Qassem said.

It was Qassem’s first address since the ceasefire came into effect on Wednesday, more than a year after Hezbollah launched near-daily rocket and drone attacks on Israel. The terror group in Lebanon said its attacks were a show of support for Palestinians amid the war in the Gaza Strip sparked by the Hamas terror group’s devastating October 7, 2023, onslaught. The relentless attacks forced the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.

Qassem said Hezbollah had “approved the deal, with the resistance strong in the battlefield, and our heads held high with our right to defend [ourselves].”

The truce, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah terrorists are to withdraw north of the Litani River, about 20 kilometers from the boundary between Israel and Lebanon, and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.

Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.

“The resistance will be ready to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of Lebanon’s weakness along with our partners… first and foremost the army,” Qassem said in a televised speech.

“The coordination between the resistance and the Lebanese army will be at a high level to implement the commitments of the agreement,” Qassem continued, adding that “no one is betting on problems or disagreements” with the army.

The Lebanese army has already sent additional troops to the south but is preparing a detailed deployment plan to share with Lebanon’s cabinet, security sources and officials have said.

Qassem vowed that “our support for Palestine will not stop and will continue through different means.”

“To those that were betting that Hezbollah would be weakened, we are sorry, their bets have failed,” he said.

The Israeli military on Friday morning published a summary of its activities against Hezbollah over the past 14 months of war.

According to IDF data, Israeli forces struck over 12,500 Hezbollah targets, including 1,600 command centers and 1,000 weapons depots since the terror group began its near-daily attacks on October 8, 2023.

Sources close to Hezbollah say the terror group believes the number of its fighters killed by Israel in the last year could be as high as 4,000, the vast majority of them during the last two months of intensified fighting. The sources cited previously unreported internal estimates.

Israel eliminated Qassem’s predecessor Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in Beirut two months ago, killed most of Hezbollah’s other key leaders, and is said to have destroyed some 80% of its military capabilities.

Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel since October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 45 civilians. In addition, 76 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes, attacks on Israel, and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.

On the Israeli side, nearly 3,000 homes and buildings in Israel were damaged by Hezbollah attacks, according to an Army Radio report on Thursday citing official figures.