In a statement carried by Al-Manar TV, Sheikh Qassem said Lebanon faces a difficult choice, having to either surrender to Israel and accept continued occupation, relinquishing its land, sovereignty, and future generations, or resist to prevent Israel from achieving its goals.
"Aggression is the problem and the danger, while resistance is the hope and the path to liberation," Qassem said, stressing that confronting Israel is a national responsibility shared by all political, social, and military forces.
"The Israeli-US campaign seeks to strip Lebanon of its strength, control its policies, and determine the future of its people by inciting internal strife, legitimizing Israeli occupation, and preventing the Lebanese army from arming and defending the country," he added.
He said the United States and Israel are pursuing a scheme to establish the so-called Greater Israel, spanning “from the Euphrates to the Nile, including Lebanon,” and added that “a rocket salvo does not justify war, and such claims carry no weight after fifteen months of continuous aggression.”
He emphasized that the timing chosen by the resistance to respond to the aggression and defend Lebanon denied Israel the element of surprise, preventing it from isolating Lebanon.
No disarmament under fire
Qassem has repeatedly warned that limiting weapons solely to the state, driven by Israeli demands, would push Lebanon toward collapse and advance this colonial vision of "Greater Israel."
"Negotiations with the Israeli occupation under fire are enforced surrender that would strip Lebanon of its capabilities," he further said.
Sheikh Qassem also underscored that the conflict is not a proxy war fought on Lebanese soil but rather “a war by Israel and the United States against Lebanon.”
"We are engaged in a defensive struggle for Lebanon and its people... and every territory reclaimed belongs solely to Lebanon," Qassem added.
He called for national unity, urging the government to “avoid decisions that serve Israeli objectives, even unintentionally, and should reverse any measures that criminalize resistance or its supporters.”
He pointed out that Israel targets civilians, destroys infrastructure, depopulates towns, and devastates livelihoods while avoiding resistance fighters. "The resistance will not be defeated," he said.
Wednesday’s statement is Sheikh Qassem's fourth address since the Israeli aggression on Lebanon started on 2 March.
Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon until 2000 and seized additional territory in September 2024, has intensified its attacks since the start of its joint war with the United States on Iran.
On Tuesday, it said its forces would control the border area up to the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the frontier, covering roughly 23 percent of Lebanon, including much of the South Governorate and the southern edge of Beqaa.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon who evacuated northward will not [be allowed to] return south of the Litani River until security for the residents of the north [of Israel] is ensured.”
Lebanon’s state-run NNA reported Israeli strikes and artillery shelling in southern locations on Wednesday, including "enemy warplanes… on Beirut’s southern suburbs" following a renewed displacement order.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in southern Lebanon, Beirut, and the Bekaa Valley. A ground incursion by Israeli divisions sparked clashes with Hezbollah fighters.
The Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 people, including 42 health workers and over 100 children, and displaced nearly one million. On Wednesday, Lebanese authorities reported paramedics were killed in Nabatiyeh and a raid on the Mieh Mieh Palestinian refugee camp.
In response, Hezbollah said its fighters targeted Israeli troops “massed in the border towns of Naqura and Qawzah” with more than 100 rockets, also claiming attacks in northern Israel, where a woman was killed by rocket fire from Lebanon.
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned that fighting must not condemn Lebanon to the same fate as Gaza, decimated by Israel's genocidal war.
In early March, extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened Beirut's southern suburbs with the same devastation that Israel has inflicted on Gaza since October, 2023.
Before the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Israeli occupation army had violated the terms of the November 2024 ceasefire agreement on hundreds of occasions, with strikes that killed nearly 500 people and maintained an occupation of parts of the south.
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