Hezbollah number two, Naim Qassem, said today that the ongoing conflict with Israel in Lebanon cannot be separated from that in the Gaza Strip. “We were asked to accept a 10 kilometer buffer zone to reach a ceasefirebut we insisted on the end of the Israeli war in Gaza,” he said in a televised speech, the third given after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27.
According to Qassem “Israel represents a real danger for the region” so “we cannot separate Lebanon from Palestine”, because the United States, “the biggest demon, wants a new Middle East”.
“After a ceasefire with indirect agreement, the settlers will be able to return to the North and the other steps will be outlined. But with the continuation of the war, the number of uninhabited settlements will increase and hundreds of thousands or perhaps more than two million (of Israelis, ed.) will be in the danger zone”he warned.
“We have decided to follow a new approach, called the approach of hurting the enemy, so that he can feel pain. The rockets are now reaching Haifa and beyond, just as our Sayyed (Hassan Nasrallah, ed.) would have wanted”, he remembered, in the third televised speech since the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27th.
At a funeral in Tehran, Esmail Qaani, the leader of the Quds forces, appears again, presumed dead
Amid crowds shouting ‘death to Israel’ and yellow Hezbollah flags, Esmail Qaani reappeared in public in Tehran. Dispelling the blanket of silence and mystery that for days had fueled all sorts of rumors about his disappearance, from his death in an Israeli raid in Beirut to an alleged forced disappearance for having plotted with the Mossad.
The supreme commander of the Iranian Quds Forces – the foreign operational branch of the Revolutionary Guards – personally attended the funeral of the high commander of the Pasdaran Abbas Nilforoushan, killed in an Israeli attack in Beirut on 27 September together with the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Iranian state television showed a video in which Qaani, in military fatigues, is seen taking part in the commemorative ceremony, even wiping away some tears.
