New Hezbollah leader won’t last ‘long’, Israeli Defense Minister vows

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned new Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem on Tuesday that his appointment “will not last long.”

“Temporary appointment. Not for long,” Gallant wrote in a social media post alongside a photo of Qassem, whom Hezbollah previously named as the successor to slain leader Hassan Nasrallah.

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 missile arsenal had been largely destroyed by Israeli attacks.

“I estimate that the residual power of (Hezbollah’s) shells and rockets is about 20 percent, and it is no longer organized in such a way that it can fire multiple rocket launchers,” he said.

As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, Hezbollah had fired about 60 shells at Israel, the military said in a statement.