Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, on Tuesday that his appointment was “not for long”.
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“Temporary appointment. Not for long,” Gallant wrote in a post on social media alongside a photograph of Qassem, whom Hezbollah had earlier named as assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah’s successor.
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 rocket arsenal to have been mostly destroyed by Israeli attacks.
“I estimate the residual capacity of [Hezbollah] projectiles and rockets to be in the order of 20 per cent, and it is no longer organised in a way that it can fire volleys,” he said.
On Tuesday, around 60 projectiles were fired by Hezbollah into Israel as of 3pm, the military said in a statement.