Wars 2023 10/08 Monitoring the Israel and Lebanon War

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Hezbollah chief thanks Iran for support to face Israel

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has thanked a senior Iranian official for his country’s on-going support in confronting Israel, the Lebanese militant group said on Thursday...

www.newagebd.net

Hezbollah chief thanks Iran for support to face Israel
Agence France-Presse . Beirut, Lebanon 14 August, 2025, 22:13

Naim Qassem | BSS file photo

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem has thanked a senior Iranian official for his country’s on-going support in confronting Israel, the Lebanese militant group said on Thursday.

For decades, Tehran has been the main backer of the Shia Muslim group, which emerged badly weakened from last year’s war with Israel that saw its arsenal pummelled and senior commanders killed.

Qassem met with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani, who arrived in Beirut on Wednesday, and thanked Iran ‘for the on-going support to Lebanon and its resistance against the Israeli enemy’, the group said in a statement.

He also thanked Iran for its support for Lebanon’s ‘unity, sovereignty and independence’, and emphasised ‘the brotherly relations between the Lebanese and Iranian people’.

Larijani’s visit came after the Lebanese government tasked the army with drawing up a plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year.

Recent statements from Iranian officials in support of Hezbollah keeping its weapons have angered Lebanese officials.

Lebanese president Joseph Aoun told Larijani on Wednesday that ‘we reject any interference in our internal affairs,’ adding that ‘it is forbidden for anyone... to bear arms and to use foreign backing as leverage’.

Prime minister Nawaf Salam was equally firm, saying that ’Lebanon will not accept, in any form, any interference in its internal affairs, and expects from the Iranian side a clear and explicit commitment to respect these principles.’

Larijani said that ‘any decision that the Lebanese government makes in consultation with the resistance is respected by us’.

‘The one who interferes in Lebanese affairs is the one who plans for you, gives you a timetable from thousands of kilometres away. We did not give you any plan,’ he said.

He was alluding to Washington, which put heavy pressure on Beirut to disarm Hezbollah and even presented a detailed proposal, including a timeline, for the process.

Saif · Monday at 9:15 PM

newagebd.net/post/middle-east/283149/hezbollah-mourns-top-commander-killed-in-israeli-strike

Hezbollah mourns top commander killed in Israeli strike
Agence France-Presse . Beirut, Lebanon 24 November, 2025, 22:18

Hezbollah held the funeral Monday for its top military chief and other members of the militant group a day after Israel killed them in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Haytham Ali Tabatabai is the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since a November 2024 ceasefire sought to end more than a year of hostilities between the two sides.

His assassination comes as Israel has escalated its attacks on Lebanon, with the United States increasing pressure on the Beirut government to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Israel’s military said Sunday it had ‘eliminated the terrorist Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s chief of general staff’.

The group announced the deaths of Tabatabai and four other members in the attack.

In Beirut’s southern suburbs, a densely populated area where Hezbollah holds sway, hundreds of supporters joined Monday’s funeral procession for Tabatabai and two of his companions.

Hezbollah members in fatigues carried the coffins, draped in the group’s yellow flags, to the sound of religious chants, an AFP correspondent said.

The crowd yelled slogans against Israel and America, while supporters carried portraits of the group’s leaders and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Hezbollah said Tabatabai assumed the role of military leader after the most recent war with Israel, which saw the group heavily weakened and senior commanders killed.

Israel has carried out near daily strikes on Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the group from rearming.

According to the agreement, Hezbollah was to withdraw north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres from the border with Israel, and to have its military infrastructure there dismantled.

Under a government-approved plan, Lebanon’s army is to finish disarming Hezbollah in the area by year end, before tackling the rest of the country.

Hezbollah has rejected calls to disarm.

After Tabatabai’s killing, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would ‘not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its power’ and urged Lebanon’s government to ‘fulfil its commitment to disarm Hezbollah’.

A source close to the group said there were ‘two opinions within the group — those who wish to respond to the assassination and those who want to refrain from doing so — but the leadership tends to adopt the utmost forms of diplomacy at the present stage’.

Last December, Hezbollah lost a key supply route through Syria with the fall of longtime ruler and ally Bashar al-Assad.

Washington is also demanding that Beirut cut off the group’s funding from Iran, which slammed Sunday’s killing as ‘cowardly’.

Atlantic Council researcher Nicholas Blanford said that ‘Hezbollah’s options are very limited’.

‘Its support base is clamouring for revenge but if Hezbollah responds directly Israel will strike back very hard and no one in Lebanon will thank Hezbollah for that,’ he said.

Sunday’s strike was the biggest blow to Hezbollah since the ceasefire ‘because of (Tabatabai’s) seniority and the fact that it demonstrates the Israelis can still locate and target senior officials despite whatever protective measures Hezbollah is undertaking’ since the war, Blanford added.

Senior Hezbollah official Ali Damush told the funeral that Tabatabai’s killing aimed ‘to frighten and weaken Hezbollah into retreating surrendering, and submitting, but this goal will never be achieved’.

Israel was ‘worried about Hezbollah’s possible response — and should remain worried’, he said, urging Lebanese authorities to ‘confront the aggression by all means and reject the pressures that seek to push Lebanon to comply with American dictates and Israeli conditions’.

Lebanon’s army says it is implementing its plan to disarm Hezbollah, but the United States and Israel have accused Lebanon’s authorities of stalling.

Condemning the attack, prime minister Nawaf Salam said Sunday that ‘the only way to consolidate stability’ was through ‘extending the authority of the state over all its territory with its own forces, and enabling the Lebanese army to carry out its duties’.

A Lebanese military official said last week that US and Israeli demands to fully disarm Hezbollah by December 31 were ‘impossible’ considering personnel and equipment shortages, expressing concern at the risk of confrontations with local communities that support the group.