Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem warned that the resistance group has the right to retaliate to the assassination of senior commander Haitham Al-Tabtabai, affirming that surrender is not an option, Al Manar reported.

In a memorial service of the top commander on Friday, Sheikh Qassem said that the attack on Dahiyeh last week, “is a blatant aggression and a heinous crime,” stressing that Hezbollah has “the right to respond and will set the timing for that.”

He paid tribute to Al-Tabtabai, also known as “Sayyed Abu Ali,” praising him as a model in planning, courage, and wisdom.

Speaking a year after the ceasefire that ended the brutal Israeli war on November 27, 2024, Sheikh Qassem said the ceasefire was a victory for the resistance, the people, and Lebanon. “It’s a true victory, for we prevented the enemy from achieving its goals of eliminating the resistance,” Sheikh Qassem addressed the ceremony at Sayyed Shuhada Complex.

Al-Tabtabai, Hezbollah’s Chief of Staff and commander of the elite Radwan Force, was killed on November 23, 2025, in an Israeli airstrike on Haret Hreik, a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh. The strike killed five people and wounded 28 others.