Hezbollah’s Shura Council has elected Naim Qassem as the organization’s new Secretary General, according to a recent statement.

Qassem previously served as Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General under the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut on September 27.

Born in Beirut in 1953, Qassem has been a senior figure within Hezbollah for over 30 years. He graduated with a degree in chemistry from Lebanese University and founded the Lebanese Muslim Students’ Union in the 1970s.

His political involvement began with the Shia Amal movement, and in 1982, he became one of Hezbollah’s founding members in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

In 1991, he was appointed Deputy Secretary-General by Hezbollah’s then-leader, Abbas al-Moussawi. After Moussawi’s death in an Israeli helicopter attack the following year, Nasrallah succeeded him, and Qassem continued as deputy.

Qassem has long been a prominent spokesman for Hezbollah, regularly addressing the international press on the ongoing conflict with Israel.

In a statement on September 30, Qassem announced that Hezbollah would elect Nasrallah’s successor “at the earliest opportunity” and reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to continue its struggle against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

More than 1,000 writers and publishing professionals, including Sally Rooney, Arundhati Roy, and Rachel Kushner, have pledged to boycott Israeli cultural institutions they deem “complicit in, or silent observers of, the crushing oppression of Palestinians.”

The signatories state they will not work with Israeli publishers, festivals, literary agencies, or publications that they believe are complicit in “the violation of Palestinian rights,” citing “discriminatory policies and practices” as well as efforts to “whitewash and legitimize Israel’s occupation, apartheid, or genocide.”

Institutions that have not publicly recognized “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law” will also be boycotted, according to the signatories.

This campaign was organized by the Palestine Literature Festival (PalFest), which holds an annual series of free public events across cities in Palestine.

“We writers, publishers, festival staff, and other book workers are publishing this letter at a time when we face the deepest moral, political, and cultural crisis of the 21st century,” the statement begins, noting that since last October, Israel has killed at least 43,362 Palestinians in Gaza, following “75 years of displacement, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.”

The signatories emphasize that culture “has played an integral role in normalizing these injustices,” adding that “Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have played a crucial role in concealing, obfuscating, and whitewashing decades of dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians.”

The pledge asserts that those in the cultural sector “have a role to play.” The letter continues, “We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without questioning their relationship to apartheid and dispossession,” referencing the historical precedent of writers boycotting apartheid-era South Africa.

The letter concludes with a call for signatories to join their colleagues in the pledge.

In response, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), an organization of lawyers supporting Israel, sent a letter to the Society of Authors, the Publishers Association, and the Independent Publishers Guild.

“This boycott is clearly discriminatory against Israelis and does not impose similar conditions on authors, publishers, festivals, literary agencies, or publications of other nationalities,” UKLFI stated, adding that its members believe there are legal risks involved in participating in the boycott.

Omar Robert Hamilton, co-founder and current festival director of PalFest, responded, calling UKLFI’s letter “notable only for its moral bankruptcy,” saying it demonstrates “that Israel’s defenders have nothing substantive to say.”

Rooney, author of Normal People and most recently Intermezzo, has long been an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights and, in 2021, refused to sell the Hebrew translation rights for her novel Beautiful World, Where Are You to an Israeli publisher.

Roy and Kushner are also vocal critics of Israel. Earlier this month, while accepting the PEN Pinter Prize, Roy mentioned Gaza in her speech and announced she would donate the prize money to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.

Talks continue in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on the resumption of prisoner exchange negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli press reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the short-term ceasefire in Gaza proposed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, despite support from most government ministers.

According to reports, Mossad Director David Barnea, CIA Director William Burns, and Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdurrahman al-Thani met in Doha yesterday to resume negotiations on a prisoner swap. The meetings between Barnea, Al Thani, and Burns are set to continue today.

Following the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli raid on Rafah in southern Gaza on October 16, the prisoner swap issue was put back on the agenda by U.S. and Tel Aviv administrations. Hamas reportedly holds 101 Israeli prisoners in Gaza.

Two-day truce offer rejected

Israeli state television KAN and Channel 12 reported that the Tel Aviv government rejected the Egyptian proposal. According to Channel 12’s website, while most Israeli government ministers supported the Egyptian proposal, Netanyahu opposed it. Netanyahu reportedly argued that “talks on a prisoner swap will only continue as long as the attacks on Gaza continue.” The report noted that Israeli security units had supported the Egyptian offer.

President Sisi had proposed a two-day ceasefire initiative for exchanging four Israeli prisoners and some Palestinians detained in Gaza. “Negotiations will take place in the next 10 days to turn the temporary truce into a permanent one,” el-Sisi said.

‘We must make painful concessions’

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has been at odds with Netanyahu and his right-wing partners over the management of post-war Gaza and is expected to be dismissed soon, said “painful concessions” would be necessary to secure the prisoners’ return.

Speaking at a memorial service for the victims of the “Aqsa Flood,” Gallant stated: “In war, not all goals can be achieved by military means. Power is not the answer to everything. The return of the Gaza prisoners to their homes requires painful compromises. We must do it for the prisoners, for their families, for the fallen soldiers, for the legacy of the army, for Jewish and national values. This is our responsibility.”