Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said in a speech on Tuesday, ahead of Ashura, that it is impossible for his organization to break Israel’s strength in a direct military confrontation. He said that if he tried to compare the resistance’s power with Israel’s and claim he could defeat it, “I am not speaking correctly,” adding that it is “impossible” to defeat Israel “army against army.”
Qassem’s remarks were presented as an unusual acknowledgement of the IDF’s military superiority and of Hezbollah’s inability to decisively beat Israel in a conventional war. The comments drew a swift response from the IDF spokesperson in Arabic, Avichay Adraee, who mocked him on X, saying, “Naim Qassem, it seems this is perhaps the first time you are saying something right,” and adding, “Yes, Israel does not break.”
Adraee continued by accusing Hezbollah’s leadership of having ignored repeated warnings about Israel’s military, intelligence and technological strength. He wrote that Israel, because of its “resolute will, combat doctrine, cohesion of its people and great military power,” is a rock on which Hezbollah’s illusions crash. He also invoked Qassem’s predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, saying he should have learned from him after Nasrallah publicly expressed regret with the words “if I had known.”
In his final remarks, Adraee said Hezbollah now has no excuse to claim surprise, because it knew what it was facing and still, “on Iran’s orders,” threw itself into the abyss. He closed by saying Hezbollah’s long-running “spider web” theory had collapsed against reality, and that the result is clear: “Israel is strong, stable, and continues to dismantle your illusions.”
