Lebanon's Hezbollah group has announced that Naim Kassem will replace its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.
Kassem, a longtime deputy to Nasrallah, has served as the Iran-backed group's acting leader since Nasrallah's death.
The group said in a written statement Tuesday that its Shura Council had elected Kassem, 71, under its established mechanism for choosing a secretary-general.
"Hezbollah's (governing) Shura Council agreed to elect ... Sheikh Naim Kassem as secretary-general of Hezbollah," the statement read.
He was appointed as Hezbollah's deputy chief in 1991 by the armed group's then-secretary general Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed by an Israeli helicopter attack the following year.
Kassem remained in his role when Nasrallah became leader and has long been one of Hezbollah's leading spokespersons, conducting interviews with foreign media, including as cross-border hostilities with Israel raged over the last year.
Nasrallah was killed on Sept. 27, and senior Hezbollah figure Hashem Safieddine – considered the most likely successor – was killed in Israeli strikes a week later.
Since Nasrallah's killing, Kassem has given three televised addresses, including one on Oct. 8 in which he said the group supported efforts to reach a cease-fire for Lebanon.
Many in Lebanon consider him to lack the charisma and gravitas of Nasrallah.
The Israeli government's official Arabic account on X posted, "His tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this ... organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine."
"There is no solution in Lebanon except to dismantle this organization as a military force," it wrote.
