Hezbollah chief says group will hold out in its war with Israel for ‘suitable’ cease-fire terms

BEIRUT (AP) - Hezbollah's newly named leader Naim Kassem said in his first public comments aired Wednesday that the militant group will keep fighting in its ongoing war with Israel until it is offered cease-fire terms it deems acceptable.

"If the Israelis decide to stop the aggression, we say that we accept, but according to the conditions that we see as suitable," Kassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a pre-recorded televised address. "We will not beg for a cease fire as we will continue (fighting)… no matter how long it takes."

The speech came as international mediators have launched a new push for negotiated cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza.

More than 2,790 people have been killed and 12,700 wounded in Lebanon since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel, drawing retaliation, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The conflict escalated sharply last month and Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October. Some 1.2 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Lebanon according to government estimates.

Kassem, a cleric and founding member of the Lebanese militant group, was named Tuesday to replace former longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in late September. Kassem had served as Nasrallah's deputy for more than three decades.

Several other high-ranking officials with the group, including Nasrallah's presumptive successor, Hashem Safieddine, have also been killed in recent weeks, as the Israel-Hezbollah war has escalated in Lebanon.

Kassem said the series of blows dealt to the group in recent weeks – including pager and walkie-talkie explosions that targeted Hezbollah members in mid-September and the assassination of Nasrallah – had "hurt" the group, but he asserted that the group had been able to reorganize its ranks within eight days after Nasrallah's death.

"Hezbollah's capabilities are still available and compatible with a long war," he said. He pointed to the steady stream of Israeli soldiers wounded and killed in southern Lebanon since Israeli forces launched a ground invasion on Oct. 1, and to a drone launched by Hezbollah that hit the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month. Netanyahu was not harmed.

He said Hezbollah has been in coordination with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the primary Lebanese interlocutor communicating with the United States, which has put forward a series of proposals to end the conflict.

"So far no project has been put forward that Israel agrees on and is acceptable for us to negotiate it," Kassem said.

Kassem said Hezbollah is carrying out plans laid out by its slain former chief in the ongoing war.

There was no immediate Israeli response to the speech.

As he was speaking, a series of Israeli airstrikes pounded the eastern city of Baalbek.

The Israeli army had earlier issued an evacuation warning for residents in the entire eastern Lebanese city of Baalbeck, including the ancient Roman temple complex, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The order also included surrounding areas and key routes in the Bekaa Valley.

On Oct. 6, an Israeli strike hit some 700 meters (750 yards) away from the ancient citadel, which houses two of the largest Roman temples in the world.

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Associated Press staff writers Abby Sewell and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.