Israeli defence minister warns Hezbollah's new leader Naim Qassem he 'won't last long'

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, on Tuesday that his appointment was “not for long”.

“Temporary appointment. Not for long,” Gallant wrote in a post on social media alongside a photograph of Qassem, whom Hezbollah had earlier named as assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah’s successor.

In a separate post in Hebrew, Gallant wrote that the “countdown has begun”.

Gallant, who visited the Israeli military’s northern command on Tuesday, said in a later statement that he estimated Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal to have been mostly destroyed by Israeli attacks.

“I estimate the residual capacity of [Hezbollah] projectiles and rockets to be in the order of 20 per cent, and it is no longer organised in a way that it can fire volleys,” he said.

On Tuesday, around 60 projectiles were fired by Hezbollah into Israel as of 3pm, the military said in a statement.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has fired between 180 and 200 rockets on some days, according to figures provided by the Israeli military.

The military has also carried out intense air strikes on Hezbollah’s weapons production and storage facilities inside Lebanon.

Gallant said that tens of thousands of soldiers had succeeded in pushing Hezbollah “out of all the villages along the border and destroyed infrastructure of all types that were there”. “These things create a different reality in Lebanon and in the region as well”, he said.

Regional analysts have said previously that Hezbollah possessed an arsenal of around 150,000 rockets before it began fighting Israel on its northern border in October last year following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

It has unspecified number of anti-aircraft, anti-tank and anti-ship missiles as well as ballistic missiles capable of accurately targeting deep inside Israeli territory.