Hezbollah deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem said: “We see the US as an important partner in all the crimes committed in Gaza. Without the support of the US, the Zionist regime’s attacks would have ended within a month”.

Naim Qassem said in a statement on Lebanese television that the ground attacks in southern Lebanon began 7 days ago, but the Israeli army has not made any progress yet.

Describing the Aqsa Flood operation launched by Hamas on 7 October last year as the beginning of change in the Middle East, Qassem said that Israel’s aim is to destroy the axis of resistance and the Palestinian people.

Declaring that Hezbollah’s capabilities were strong despite Israel’s painful actions in recent weeks, Qassem said his fighters had repelled Israel’s ground attacks.

This is the battle of who will cry first. We will not cry. Hezbollah’s command and control is organised with precision. All the positions we lost in the attacks have been filled. There is constant coordination between the various units and forces on the ground.

Netanyahu will not achieve his goals in this war. We will attack with missiles and drones at the appropriate time and place according to our own military plans.

Qassem stated that they will elect a new secretary general to replace Hassan Nasrullah, saying that they will announce this when the process is complete. Qassem explained that the conditions for electing a new secretary general are difficult because of the war, adding: ‘The only solution for us is to resist and insist.

Qassem also said that Iran was determined to stand by the resistance ‘in the way it sees fit’.

Noting that Hezbollah and the Amal movement were compatible, Qassem said they supported the political process led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to reach a ceasefire.

For the first time, Qassem’s statement did not mention a ceasefire in Gaza as a precondition for a truce, but it was not clear whether this signalled a change of position.

Hezbollah continues attacks in northern Israel

On the other hand, Hezbollah said in a statement via Telegram that a rocket attack had been organised in the area where Israeli soldiers were gathering near the Al-Merc area near the Lebanese border. The statement noted that rockets were also fired at the Israeli army’s artillery position in the town of Dishun in northern Israel, and that the Israeli artillery position in the town of Delton was also targeted.

The statement said the strikes were carried out ‘in support of the determined Palestinian people of Gaza, their brave and honourable resistance, in defence of Lebanon and its people, and in response to Israel’s barbaric occupation’.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) also announced that a total of 100 rockets were fired from Lebanon into the Haifa area today. According to the IDF, some of the rockets were intercepted by air defence systems.

Hezbollah, which said 17 Israeli soldiers had been killed in clashes in southern Lebanon, announced this morning that it had targeted the Krayot region near Haifa in northern Israel with a large number of rockets.

Following Israel’s announcement that it would invade southern Lebanon, clashes have erupted from time to time along the border. The Israeli army has so far failed to make any significant progress on the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah announced that 17 Israeli soldiers had been killed in the clashes in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army, on the other hand, said that 9 soldiers had been killed in clashes in Lebanon since 30 September, when the ground offensive began.

On the other hand, the Hezbollah statement said that the Krayot region north of the city of Haifa had been hit by a large number of rockets. The Israeli press also reported that sirens were sounding in border towns in northern Israel.

In a statement, the Israeli army said it had observed 20 rockets fired from Lebanon, most of which were intercepted and the rest fell in open country.

The coastal city of Haifa, about 40 kilometres from the Lebanese border, is one of Israel’s most important industrial and commercial centres.

Israel is trying to invade Lebanon by land, while at the same time carrying out intensive air strikes on targets it claims are Hezbollah family members near the capital, Beirut. It is also hitting targets in Syria to cut Hezbollah’s supply line. In this context, it was reported that Israel carried out an air strike on the al-Masna crossing on the Lebanese-Syrian border. It was reported that the road between the Lebanese capital Beirut and the Syrian capital Damascus was also disrupted by the attack, although there was no information on whether anyone was killed or injured.

Three civilians were killed and three others injured in an Israeli air strike on the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday, the Syrian state news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying.

According to the source, the Israeli airstrike targeted a residential building in the Mezzeh neighbourhood in western Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the son-in-law of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a major Israeli strike in Beirut last week, was also killed in the Israeli strike in Damascus.

Hassan Nasrallah’s son-in-law, Hassan Jaafar al-Kasir, was among two Lebanese killed in an Israeli strike on an apartment in the Mezzeh district of Damascus,’ the Observatory said, with a source close to Hezbollah confirming the claim to AFP.

The Observatory also said an Israeli drone targeted and destroyed an arms depot in the Syrian coastal town of Jabalah before dawn on Thursday.

The Britain-based monitoring group said the attack, carried out by drones and fighter jets, leveled the warehouse and caused large explosions that could be heard for miles.

It added that Syrian air defences and Russian forces responded to the attack within 40 to 50 minutes as the depot was located near the Khmeimim airbase in the northwestern province of Latakia, Russia’s largest airbase in Syria.