As residents flee Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon's anti-Hezbollah newspaper Nidaa Al-Watan has landed its sharpest blow yet against Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem, comparing him directly to Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas commander whose strategy led Gaza to near-total destruction
The headline comes as Beirut's Dahiyeh district, Hezbollah’s historic stronghold in the southern suburbs of the capital, is being evacuated under relentless Israeli airstrikes © Mena Today
As residents flee Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon's anti-Hezbollah newspaper Nidaa Al-Watan has landed its sharpest blow yet against Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem, comparing him directly to Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas commander whose strategy led Gaza to near-total destruction.
The front page is blunt and unsparing: "Naim al-Sinwar is replicating Gaza."
The message needs no elaboration. Sinwar's name has become shorthand for one thing in the Arab world: a leader who sacrificed his people on the altar of resistance, leaving behind rubble, mass displacement and catastrophic human suffering.
By pinning that label on Qassem, Nidaa Al-Watan is making an explosive accusation, that Hezbollah's secretary-general is leading Lebanon down the same path of self-destruction that consumed Gaza.
The headline comes as Beirut's Dahiyeh district, Hezbollah’s historic stronghold in the southern suburbs of the capital, is being evacuated under relentless Israeli airstrikes. Entire neighborhoods are emptying. Families are fleeing with whatever they can carry.
The scenes are painfully familiar to anyone who watched Gaza over the past two years.
A Lebanese Voice Against Hezbollah
Nidaa Al-Watan has long been one of Lebanon's most vocal critics of Hezbollah, consistently arguing that the group's military adventurism serves Iran's interests, not Lebanon's.
Today's headline reflects a growing fury among Lebanese who never wanted this war and who now watch their country pay the price for decisions made without their consent.
The Lebanese government itself has banned Hezbollah's military activities and ordered the group to disarm. Qassem has ignored every order.
The Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, which is named after a Shi'ite Muslim scholar whose shrine sits at its summit, has become one of the most contested pieces of ground in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the release of five Lebanese nationals held by Israel, after being abducted from southern Lebanon during the successive wars since 2023.
Iran has warned the United States that it would respond forcefully to an Israeli offensive on a mountainous ridge in southern Lebanon where Iranian military personnel are holed up alongside Hezbollah fighters, three officials briefed on the message told Reuters.
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