On March 2 at approximately 1:30 am, Hezbollah attacked Israel with several rockets and drones for the first time since the November 27, 2024, ceasefire went into effect. The group officially claimed the attacks as a retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a delayed “act of self-defense” in response to Israel’s ongoing military operations in Lebanon.
In response, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) significantly escalated its operations against Hezbollah. On the first day of the renewed conflict, the IDF launched almost 200 attacks against the group’s military, media, and financial assets throughout Lebanon while also targeting operatives belonging to the group and its partners. The IDF vowed to fight until Hezbollah was sufficiently degraded, and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem with assassination.
The outbreak of this conflict isn’t entirely surprising. On January 26, Qassem said that his organization would not remain neutral in the case of a US-Israeli war on Iran or a threat to Khamenei’s life. However, he refused to commit to military intervention. At the time, Qassem said that Hezbollah would determine the best course of action when the time came, taking prevailing circumstances into account. Nevertheless, reports suggest that Hezbollah privately promised Lebanese officials, including President Joseph Aoun, that it would stay out of a conflict.
Thus, the Lebanese government may well have been blindsided by Hezbollah’s attack on Israel on March 2, a possibility buttressed by its unprecedented decision to proscribe the group’s military and security activities and call on it to immediately disarm. The Lebanese cabinet also called on Lebanon’s security agencies to prevent additional military action of any kind by Hezbollah or attacks against Israel from Lebanese territory. In addition, Beirut “requested” that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) command “proceed immediately” with the implementation of the second phase of its plan for Hezbollah’s disarmament “north of the Litani River.”
However, this apparently promising change of direction from the Lebanese government appears to be rhetorical. The next day, Justice Minister Adel Nassar told MTV News Lebanon that “Hezbollah must take the initiative and surrender its arms to the Lebanese State.” Hezbollah has, nevertheless, continued to claim attacks against Israel. Several Lebanese outlets also reported that LAF Commander Rodolphe Haykal pushed back against the government’s directive to forcibly disarm Hezbollah north of the Litani River, instead recommending that the LAF confront invading Israeli ground troops and insisting on continued deconfliction with Hezbollah. Underscoring these reports, additional reports of the LAF enforcing the cabinet’s disarmament orders have been sporadic, inconsistent, and contradictory.
Further undermining the apparent seriousness of the Lebanese government in confronting Hezbollah, the cabinet’s decision implicitly reaffirmed the veracity of the LAF’s January 8 declaration to have completed Hezbollah’s disarmament south of the Litani River. However, after that date, Israel continued targeted killings of Hezbollah personnel in the area that it alleged were involved in the group’s local regeneration efforts. On March 4, Hezbollah also claimed that its fighters engaged Israeli ground forces in direct clashes in several Lebanese frontier villages, including Khiyam and Dhayra.
On March 4, at 9:00 pm, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem gave an unscheduled 30-minute speech addressing these developments. Qassem sought to reframe the group’s attack on Israel as purely an act of nationalistically motivated self-defense and made it clear that Hezbollah has no intention of surrendering its arms or ceasing attacks. He also called for the government to back Hezbollah, which, he said, remains committed to fighting, no matter the price.
A fuller analytic translation of Qassem’s speech follows:
Qassem began his speech with the customary religious salutations and blessings for the onset of the month of Ramadan before abruptly saying that the holiday’s “atmosphere” had been ruined by “the polytheists” who had “committed a great aggression.” He then moved on to several themes justifying Hezbollah’s attack on Israel and outlining the group’s plans:
Hezbollah had reached the limit of its patience
“The American and Israeli enemy have persisted in their aggression for a year and three months,” Qassem said. He claimed that, though Hezbollah and the Lebanese state had committed to the November 27, 2024, ceasefire agreement and fruitlessly allowed diplomacy to run its course, “Israel has not abided by a single term.”
Qassem said that Hezbollah has “refrained from responding to the ongoing Israeli aggressions, so we would not be accused of impeding diplomacy … to give the [Lebanese] state the opportunity to assume its responsibilities, and to practically test whether the implementation of this agreement could protect Lebanon and its sovereignty.” However, Qassem stated that Hezbollah had repeatedly warned that the group’s patience was not infinite and had called on the state to do more.
“I will not evaluate the state’s actions but will suffice with saying that our patience has limits, and the Israeli enemy’s transgressions became excessive,” Qassem said. Hezbollah, he claimed, had even heeded calls to wait patiently until the LAF completed its deployment in the south, “because this deployment could facilitate ending the aggression and Israeli withdrawal—but this didn’t happen.”
Seeking Hezbollah’s disarmament was misguided
Qassem insisted that demanding a “monopoly of arms” by the Lebanese state had been a mistake, because time had proven that “the occupation is the problem; the Israeli-American occupation of all Lebanon through pressure and tutelage—not Lebanon, the weapons, or the resistance.” As a result, Qassem said, “the government’s August 5 and August 7 decisions”—when Beirut asked the LAF to produce a plan to disarm Hezbollah— “were a grave mistake.” He claimed that rather than changing course in light of this error, Lebanon “continued to make concessions to match the tempo of the ongoing [Israeli] attacks that left the country powerless, without negotiation leverage, and on a path that would have deprived Lebanon of sovereignty and independence.”
Qassem said that Lebanon—and Hezbollah—instead had a “duty to do everything in our power to halt this course of continued Israeli-American aggression,” before it deprived Lebanon of its sovereignty and resulted in the country’s “submission and surrender.” However, now, Qassem said, “Instead of condemning the Israeli-American aggression and seeking ways to confront it,” the Lebanese Government had “compounded its sin” by proscribing Hezbollah’s military activities.
“Get off of this [position],” Qassem said, arguing that Hezbollah had not brought war upon Lebanon, but that this war had been premeditated by the enemy.
A premeditated Israeli war of expansionism, not a response to Hezbollah’s rockets
Qassem sought to convince his audience that Hezbollah’s attack and its timing were unrelated to the war on Iran. “We are fighting in Lebanon in defense of our people, the future of our children, and our country. This fight is not linked to any other battle. Our goal is ending the Israeli-American aggression and [causing] Israeli withdrawal [from Lebanon],” he said.
Qassem insisted that Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2 because the group’s patience had run out and implied that the overlap with the US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic regime was coincidental. “To those who ask about the timing and why we chose to act now, I ask them, are we expected to endure indefinitely? We have always said everything has its limits, and isn’t 15 months of daily violations, 500 martyrs at a rate of a martyr a day—isn’t that enough?” he said. Israel, Qassem claimed, had inflicted more destruction upon Lebanese border areas during the ceasefire than it had during the final phase of the war, “because it has no regard for anything and wants to demonstrate its ability to kill, demolish, kidnap, impose its will on Lebanon, and commit genocide against anyone it believes will resist or confront it.”
Qassem vehemently denied that Hezbollah’s rocket barrage had prompted the latest outbreak of war. “Some allege firing a single barrage of rockets prompted the Israeli attack. Not at all! The rocket barrage was a response to the Israeli-American aggression against our country, and 15 months of Israeli violations of everything connected to us—including targeting the Guardian Imam Sayyed Khamenei.” Hezbollah, he said, fired the rocket barrage to “end the illusion that this enemy will leave us alone if we leave it alone” and further argued that Israel’s disproportionate response proved Hezbollah was right all along. “Israel starting a war in response to a single rocket barrage dispelled this delusion. Do you actually think a single rocket barrage deserves a war? No,” he reasoned.
Qassem claimed that Israel instead launched this war as a continuation of its “expansionist project, of Greater Israel, which Netanyahu openly declared he wants, with the support of the American ambassador to the Israeli Entity, who said Israel has a legitimate right to control all lands between the Nile and the Euphrates.”
“Israel,” Qassem said, “is an existential threat to us, our people, our homeland, and the entire region,” and had launched a “war of extermination” in Lebanon. As proof, he pointed to the widescale nature of Israeli operations and the strikes on Al Manar, part of Hezbollah’s media apparatus, and Al Qard al Hassan, Hezbollah’s financial institution, “which gives loans to the needy and poor … and benefits thousands of Lebanese of all sects.”
“They are targeting our very existence,” Qassem said.
Qassem also sought to deflect blame for the war from Hezbollah by claiming that Israel’s renewed efforts were premeditated and inevitable; therefore, Hezbollah had only preempted and not prompted it. “What Israel did after the rocket barrage wasn’t a response, but a premeditated act of aggression,” he said, claiming that Israeli media reports provided proof. “So, they were indeed preparing to attack; they had prepared their target bank but were deciding what day to begin their aggression, and saw this as an opportune moment,” he claimed.
Qassem sought to underscore his point by recalling a claim he made during his January 26 speech alleging that “intermediaries” had conveyed to Hezbollah Israel’s “definite” intentions to attack “Hezbollah, Lebanon, and the Resistance,” and it was only weighing whether “to attack Iran or Lebanon first, or both of them simultaneously.”
Qassem similarly insisted that Hezbollah was not to blame for the displacement of Lebanese citizens from south Lebanon. Israel, he said, was displacing civilians “to create a rupture between the resistance and the people—but the people know better.” Hezbollah and the citizens of southern Lebanon, he said, “remain in the same trench, and our unwavering solidarity will thwart the Israeli-American aggression’s goals just as it did in the [2024 war].”
Hezbollah will retain its arms and continue fighting
Qassem declared that Hezbollah will not surrender its arms, insisting that international and domestic law, human rights, and “all divine religions” sanctified “resistance as a legitimate right.” Hezbollah, he said, “will not debate the resistance or its weapons with anyone,” and will instead continue “responding to the Israeli-American aggression … until our objectives are achieved.” He continued:
They wanted a battle without limits. But we choose to confront them with an unwavering response. We will not surrender. We will defend ourselves with our capabilities and our belief, no matter the sacrifices and despite the disparity in capabilities. We are committed to continuing this defense, to thwarting the objectives of the Israeli-American enemy, and continuing to steadfastly reject the enemy’s threats. Let history record that we did not hesitate to defend our rights, nor did we surrender to our enemy, and we remained open to the possibility of achieving one of the two blessings [victory in battle or martyrdom]. … Let all know that we remain steadfast and will continue.
Qassem calls for national unity
The Lebanese government’s duty now, Qassem said, was to regain Lebanon’s sovereignty, protect its people, and “defend the right of the resistance until the aggression ends and [Israel] withdraws from our land.” This conflict, after all, was a war against all of Lebanon, he claimed, and national unity was required to confront it. “So, let us prioritize confronting this enemy, and then we can discuss our other issues and come to agreements about them,” Qassem said. As an extension, he called on the rest of Lebanon to welcome people displaced by the conflict—largely southerners, Shiites, and likely supporters of the group.
Qassem concluded by describing the current crisis as “an opportunity for the resistance’s opponents to turn a new page, together” and asking them “not to stab the resistance in the back during this confrontation and war.” This, he said, “will ensure the confrontation succeeds and speedily halts the Israeli-American aggression.” Qassem called on the group’s domestic opponents to unite with Hezbollah, cooperate with it, and facilitate its activities “if you want Lebanon to survive.”
David Daoud is Senior Fellow at at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon affairs.
