Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem says a war on Iran would be a war on the group, warning such a conflict would set the entire Middle East ablaze.
BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem declared on Monday that any attack on the group’s main backer, Iran, would also constitute an attack on the militant organisation itself.
He warned that a new war targeting Tehran would ignite the entire region.
The warning follows US President Donald Trump’s statement last week that a US “armada” was heading toward the Gulf and that Washington was watching Iran closely after a bloody crackdown on protesters.
Speaking at a televised solidarity rally for Iran, Qassem said Hezbollah and Iran were facing a unified aggression.
“A war on Iran this time will ignite the region,” he said.
“We will choose at that time how to act… but we are not neutral,” Qassem added, stating tactical decisions would be made based on the interests at stake.
He revealed that mediators had, in the past two months, directly asked Hezbollah if it would intervene in a potential US-Israeli war with Iran.
He said those mediators sought “a pledge from the party that it would not intervene”.
Qassem also issued a stark warning against any attempt to assassinate Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Any killing of Khamenei would be an “assassination of stability in the region and the world”, he stated, adding Hezbollah considered such a threat “directed at us as well”.
The rally in Hezbollah’s Beirut strongholds saw supporters holding pictures of Khamenei and chanting “death to America”.
Meanwhile, new Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed three people on Monday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television said one strike in Tyre killed Sheikh Ali Noureddine, a former religious programme presenter for the channel.
Hezbollah’s media office called his killing a “treacherous assassination”.
Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos condemned the strike, saying Israeli attacks “do not spare press and media personnel”.
The Israeli army accused Noureddine of having served “as head of an artillery squad” for Hezbollah and said the other two killed were also operatives.
The hostilities come despite a ceasefire that ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in November 2024.