The head of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah said Saturday that Washington’s plan for a ceasefire in Gaza was “full of dangers,” accusing Israel of using the proposal to achieve what it “failed” to do during the war.
Naim Qassem, the leader of the Hamas-aligned terrorist organization, suggested Israel would use the plan as a pretext to take over the land and strip Palestinians of their self-determination, but said the decision of whether to accept it was ultimately Hamas’s.
“In fact, this plan is a plan full of dangers,” Qassem said in a speech commemorating two Hezbollah commanders killed during its devastating war with Israel about a year ago.
“It is Israel’s project, which it seeks to achieve through politics after failing to achieve it through military action, aggression, genocide and famine,” he added.
The warning came after Hamas on Friday gave a positive response to US President Donald Trump’s proposal to free the hostages it holds in Gaza and end the nearly two-year war there, welcoming parts of his plan while hinting at resistance regarding other sections and insisting that additional negotiations were needed to finalize the terms.
The Trump plan, which has been endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also demands the disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from Gaza’s future governance — issues the Palestinian terror group did not directly address in its official response.
Qassem said he would not “interfere in the discussion of the details” of Trump’s plan, as “ultimately, the Palestinian resistance, Hamas, and all the factions are the ones discussing and deciding what they see fit.”
He insisted, however, that “we must confront the Greater Israel project” — a term that refers to Israel in expanded borders in accordance with biblical or historical descriptions, and has many versions, some of which include parts of today’s Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It was popularized after the Six Day War of June 1967 to also refer to Israel and the areas it had just conquered — East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.
In August, Netanyahu drew condemnations from Arab states after he appeared to express support for the notion of a Greater Israel in a television interview.
Qassem said Saturday that it was up to every person in the region to resist this idea, as “the project will reach him sooner or later, according to Israel’s planning.”
Immediately after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in support of its Palestinian ally.
Months of exchanges escalated into all-out war in September 2024, during which Qassem’s predecessor Hassan Nasrallah was killed, before a ceasefire was agreed two months later.
Weakened by the war and still facing regular Israeli strikes despite the truce, Hezbollah is now under internal and international pressure to hand over its weapons, with the Lebanese army having drawn up a plan to disarm it.