Qassem, a longtime deputy to Nasrallah, has served as Hezbollah’s acting leader since Nasrallah’s assassination by Israel in a targetted airstrike in south Beirut in mid-September. 

Many in Lebanon have considered Qassem Hezbollah’s “public face and voice.”

“Hezbollah’s (governing) Shura Council agreed to elect... Sheikh Naim Qassem as secretary general of Hezbollah,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

Naim Muhammad Naim Qassem, more well-known as Sheikh Naim Qassem, was born in 1953 in the Basta al-Tahta area of Beirut, Lebanon, to a Shia Muslim family originating from the village of Kfar Fila in southern Lebanon.

In 1970, he joined the Faculty of Education at the Lebanese University, where he studied Chemistry in French and obtained a Bachelor’s Degree.
Qassem was one of the founders of the Lebanese Muslim Students Union, which was established in the early 1970s.

Sheikh Qassem went on to teach in public schools for 6 years (1974 – 1980) and, in 1977, received a Master’s Degree from the same University he had previously studied.

In 1972, Qassem began teaching young students the Quran and Islamic studies at a local Mosque. 

Meanwhile, he studied under the supervision of the most prominent Shia scholars in Lebanon, notably Abbas al-Musawi, Hassan Tarrad, and Ali al-Amin.

In addition, he studied jurisprudence and principles under one of the most well-renowned Shia leaders, Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah.

Sheikh Qassem led the Islamic Religious Education Association between 1974 to 1988.

Politically, in 1974, he was one of the first members of the Amal Shia movement, the first Shia resistance group in Lebanon, led by Emam Musa al-Sadr. 

In the Amal movement, he held the positions of deputy central cultural official, member of the movement’s leadership council, and official of culture and doctrine.

In 1980, Sheikh Qassem resigned from his role in the Amal movement and decided to continue his religious education, teaching at different Mosques in Beirut.

After Israel’s brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982, during which around 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese were murdered, Sheikh Naim Qassem played an active role in the independent Shia Islamic Committees.

He was also one of the founding members of Hezbollah in 1982. He was active in the resistance to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which started in 1985.

Sheikh Qassem served as a member of Hezbollah's Shura Council before moving up the ranks of the organization.

Qassem was appointed as the Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah in 1991, with the group’s then Secretary General Seyyed Abbas al-Musawi, who would be replaced by Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah the following year after his assassination.

The new chief
 

Since the death of Nasrallah, Sheikh Qassem has made two televised speeches from undisclosed locations.

An image grab taken from Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV shows deputy chief Naim Qassem delivering a speech from an undisclosed location on September 30, 2024. AFP

In the first, which lasted just under 20 minutes, he reassured that Hezbollah was still a capable fighting force and would continue to fight despite the considerable blows dealt to its leadership.

In the second, a 30-minute speech, he spoke with a more confident tone. 

He asserted that all the leadership positions which were vacated by repeated Israeli assassinations had been filled except the position of Secretary General.

Qassem declared the party's support for the diplomatic work being done by Nabih Berri, the leader of the Amal movement and Speaker of Parliament, to spare the country from Israeli aggression but asserted that Hezbollah would not abandon Gaza and instead would only escalate its offensive and defensive military operations.