Hezbollah says will only accept ‘suitable’ truce as Israel pounds Baalbek 

Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, says that the group will keep fighting in its war with Israel until it is offered ceasefire terms it deems acceptable, as Israeli forces bombarded the ancient eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek and its outskirts following forced evacuation orders.

“If the Israelis decide to stop the aggression, we say that we accept, but according to the conditions that we see as suitable,” Qassem said in a prerecorded televised address aired on Wednesday, his first speech since he was appointed leader.

“We will not beg for a ceasefire,” he said, noting that political efforts to secure a deal have yet to yield results.

The speech was broadcast as international mediators pursued a new push for negotiated ceasefires in Lebanon and the besieged Gaza Strip.

Qassem, a Muslim leader and founding member of Hezbollah, was named Tuesday to replace former longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on a Beirut suburb in late September. Qassem had served as Nasrallah’s deputy for more than three decades.

Several other high-ranking officials with the group, including Nasrallah’s presumptive successor, Hashem Safieddine, have also been killed in recent weeks, as the Israel-Hezbollah war has escalated in Lebanon.

Qassem said the series of blows dealt to the group in recent weeks – including pager and walkie-talkie explosions that targeted Hezbollah members in mid-September and the assassination of Nasrallah – had “hurt” the group, but he asserted that the group had been able to reorganise its ranks within eight days after Nasrallah’s death.

“Hezbollah’s capabilities are still available and compatible with a long war,” he said. He pointed to the steady stream of Israeli soldiers wounded and killed in southern Lebanon since Israeli forces launched a ground invasion on October 1, and to a drone launched by Hezbollah that hit the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month. Netanyahu was not harmed.

He said Hezbollah has been in coordination with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the primary Lebanese interlocutor communicating with the United States, which has put forward a series of ceasefire proposals.

“So far no project has been put forward that Israel agrees on and is acceptable for us to negotiate it,” Kassem said.

Qassem said Hezbollah is carrying out plans laid out by its slain former chief in the continuing war.

As his speech was aired, a series of Israeli air strikes pounded the eastern city of Baalbek, hours after Israel issued a forced displacement call for the area, including the ancient Roman temple complex named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The order also included surrounding areas and key routes in the Bekaa Valley.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said al-Asira area, along with the town of Iaat and its surroundings, were targeted.

Israeli attack and surveillance drones were reported flying over the area shortly before the strikes.

“The whole city of Baalbek was shaking as loud sounds were heard across the city,” a resident told the dpa news agency.

Tens of thousands of mostly Shia Muslim Lebanese, including many who had sought shelter in the city after being forced to flee from other areas, fled after the Israeli evacuation order was issued.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Beirut, said people were still trying to get out of “those very densely populated areas”.

“The governor of Baalbek has also been urging residents to leave,” Khan said.

“Israel does have, under humanitarian international law, a responsibility to any civilians that are left there. It has to protect them.”

Bilal Raad, the regional head of the Lebanese civil defence, said the largely volunteer force had been calling on residents to leave via megaphones after receiving phone calls from someone identifying themselves as being from the Israeli military.

“People are all over each other, the whole city is in a panic trying to figure out where to go, there’s a huge traffic jam,” he said before the bombardment.

Some of the areas they are fleeing to are already full of displaced people.

Antoine Habchi, a lawmaker representing Christian-majority Deir al-Ahmar to the northwest of Baalbek, said more than 10,000 people were already sheltering in homes, schools and churches.

“We welcome everyone, of course, but we need immediate government help so that these people don’t stay out in the cold,” he told the Reuters news agency.

Meanwhile, for a third straight day, Hezbollah reported intense fighting with Israeli forces in or around the southern town of Khiam – the deepest Israel’s troops have been reported to have penetrated into Lebanon since fighting began.

More than 2,790 people have been killed and 12,700 wounded in Lebanon since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began exchanging cross-border fire with Israel in support of Palestinians in Gaza, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

The conflict escalated sharply last month and Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October. Some 1.2 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Lebanon according to government estimates.