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What We Know About Hezbollah’s Shura Council

Lebanese in Beirut watch Naim Qassem deliver a speech. (Reuters)
Lebanese in Beirut watch Naim Qassem deliver a speech. (Reuters)
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What We Know About Hezbollah’s Shura Council

Lebanese in Beirut watch Naim Qassem deliver a speech. (Reuters)
Lebanese in Beirut watch Naim Qassem deliver a speech. (Reuters)

If it is confirmed that Hezbollah’s Shura Council has met and elected Sheikh Naim Qassem as the party’s new secretary-general, this would indicate two important developments, according to sources close to the group.

First, it shows that Hezbollah has restructured and revitalized itself after facing major setbacks, as it can now hold meetings with senior leaders despite significant security risks.

Second, it counters rumors that Tehran controls the party’s political and military leadership since the assassination of secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah last month.

Hezbollah’s organizational structure includes several councils: the Shura Council, Jihad Council, Executive Council, Political Council, Governmental and Parliamentary Work Council, and Judiciary Council.

The Shura Council is the most critical, as it leads the party.

It is made up of seven members, including the secretary-general, who is also its head—now Qassem.

Other members include Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, head of the Judiciary Council; Sheikh Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid, head of the Political Council; Hashem Safieddine, the recently assassinated head of the Executive Council and presumed Nasrallah successor; Hussein Khalil, the political assistant to the secretary-general; and Mohammad Raad, head of the Parliamentary Council and leader of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc in the Lebanese Parliament.

With the appointment of a new secretary-general, two positions on Hezbollah’s Shura Council remain unfilled: the deputy secretary-general and the head of the Executive Council.

Political analyst Dr. Qassem Qassir, who closely monitors the group, points out that a deputy has yet to be named. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the appointment of a secretary-general is significant, sending a message that Hezbollah is strong and in control of its affairs.

“It is incorrect to say that Iran is running it,” he added.

Qassir believes the remaining council positions will be filled soon.

Other sources indicate that even if a deputy is appointed, their identity may not be disclosed right away.

This is because, like Qassem, they would become a key target for Israel, which aims to keep Hezbollah leaderless.

Hezbollah’s organizational structure comprises three main components. First, the secretary-general acts as the leader, holding significant regulatory authority.

Second, the Shura Council oversees four key councils: the Jihad Council, the Judiciary Council, the Parliamentary Work Council, and the Political Council.

Third, the Executive Council serves as the organizational core, functioning like a government and coordinating various operational units.

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Winter Is Hitting Gaza and Many Palestinians Have Little Protection from the Cold

Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)
Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)
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Winter Is Hitting Gaza and Many Palestinians Have Little Protection from the Cold

Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)
Reda Abu Zarada, 50, displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, warms up by a fire with her grandchildren at a camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP)

Winter is hitting the Gaza Strip and many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 14-month war with Israel are struggling to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain.

There is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing, little wood for fires, and the tents and patched-together tarps families are living in have grown increasingly threadbare after months of heavy use, according to aid workers and residents.

Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal area of Muwasi, has only one blanket and a hot water bottle to keep her eight children from shivering inside their fragile tent.

“We get scared every time we learn from the weather forecast that rainy and windy days are coming up because our tents are lifted with the wind. We fear that strong windy weather would knock out our tents one day while we’re inside,” she said.

With nighttime temperatures that can drop into the 40s (the mid-to-high single digits Celsius), Aiyada fears that her kids will get sick without warm clothing.

When they fled their home, her children only had their summer clothes, she said. They have been forced to borrow some from relatives and friends to keep warm.

The United Nations warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter. At least 945,000 people need winterization supplies, which have become prohibitively expensive in Gaza, the UN said in an update Tuesday. The UN also fears infectious disease, which spiked last winter, will climb again amid rising malnutrition.

The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA, has been planning all year for winter in Gaza, but the aid it was able to get into the territory is “not even close to being enough for people,” said Louise Wateridge, an agency spokeswoman.

UNRWA distributed 6,000 tents over the past four weeks in northern Gaza but was unable to get them to other parts of the Strip, including areas where there has been fighting. About 22,000 tents have been stuck in Jordan and 600,000 blankets and 33 truckloads of mattresses have been sitting in Egypt since the summer because the agency doesn’t have Israeli approval or a safe route to bring them into Gaza and because it had to prioritize desperately needed food aid, Wateridge said.

Many of the mattresses and blankets have since been looted or destroyed by the weather and rodents, she said.

The International Rescue Committee is struggling to bring in children’s winter clothing because there “are a lot of approvals to get from relevant authorities,” said Dionne Wong, the organization’s deputy director of programs for the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The ability for Palestinians to prepare for winter is essentially very limited,” Wong said.

The Israeli government agency responsible for coordinating aid shipments into Gaza said in a statement that Israel has worked for months with international organizations to prepare Gaza for the winter, including facilitating the shipment of heaters, warm clothing, tents and blankets into the territory.

More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry's count doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war was sparked by Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel, where the armed group killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in Gaza.

Negotiators say Israel and Hamas are inching toward a ceasefire deal, which would include a surge in aid into the territory.

For now, the winter clothing for sale in Gaza's markets is far too expensive for most people to afford, residents and aid workers said.

Reda Abu Zarada, 50, who was displaced from northern Gaza with her family, said the adults sleep with the children in their arms to keep them warm inside their tent.

“Rats walk on us at night because we don’t have doors and tents are torn. The blankets don’t keep us warm. We feel frost coming out from the ground. We wake up freezing in the morning,” she said. “I’m scared of waking up one day to find one of the children frozen to death.”

On Thursday night, she fought through knee pain exacerbated by cold weather to fry zucchini over a fire made of paper and cardboard scraps outside their tent. She hoped the small meal would warm the children before bed.

Omar Shabet, who is displaced from Gaza City and staying with his three children, feared that lighting a fire outside his tent would make his family a target for Israeli warplanes.

“We go inside our tents after sunset and don’t go out because it is very cold and it gets colder by midnight,” he said. “My 7-year-old daughter almost cries at night because of how cold she is.”