Hezbollah leader: Group not concerned with results of U.S. election

BEIRUT — Hezbollah’s leader Naim Kassem said in a speech aired Wednesday the Lebanese terrorist group “is not basing its expectations on the results of the American elections.”

“We will make the enemy seek to demand an end to the aggression,” Kassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a pre-recorded televised address. “Our military capabilities are available for a long time, and we do not rely on the results of the American elections.”

His speech marked the 40-day mourning period since former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in Beirut.

“Whether Harris wins or Trump wins, they have no value to us,” Kassem said.

He said that Hezbollah is open for cease-fire negotiations only once “the enemy stops its aggression.”

“The only thing that will stop the war is the battlefield,” he said.

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel nearly a week ago, raising hopes for an imminent cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel. However, he immediately returned to the U.S. without traveling to Lebanon, which many saw as a sign of a setback.

Sirens blared across northern and central Israel on Wednesday, including in the populous metropolitan area of Tel Aviv, as Hezbollah launched 10 rockets toward Israel.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said there were no reports of injuries.

A large portion of a rocket slammed into a parked car in the central Israeli city of Raanana. Rockets also struck an open area near Israel’s main airport, Israeli media reported, though the airport said flights were operating as normally.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said there were no injuries. Israeli police said they arrested 40 people during protests on Tuesday night when the demonstrators blocked Israel’s main highway in Tel Aviv.

In Gaza, the Israeli military allowed 231 patients and their caregivers to evacuate the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad.

COGAT, the military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza, said Wednesday that they left through the Kerem Shalom Crossing with Israel.

It says 78 patients and 132 caregivers traveled to the United Arab Emirates, and six patients and 15 caregivers went to Romania.

The operation was coordinated with the World Health Organization, the European Union and the UAE, which forged diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020.

Israel has controlled all of Gaza’s border crossings since it invaded the southern city of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, in May.

Meanwhile, United Nations agencies completed the administration of a second dose of polio vaccine to the overwhelming majority of children in the Gaza Strip.

In all, 556,774 children under the age of 10 received the second dose, the World Health Organization and the U.N. children’s agency said in a statement Wednesday. That amounts to 94 percent of the total population that age in the territory, “a remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances,” they said.

The first dose was administered across all parts of Gaza in September. The U.N. said both sides largely observed humanitarian pauses to allow the vaccinations to proceed.

At least two doses and a minimum of 90 percent vaccination coverage are needed to prevent the spread of the disease in a given community, according to the agencies.

The campaign was launched after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg.