Hezbollah fighters are ready to face any Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon, the group's deputy leader Naim Kassem said on Monday in his first public address since Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah last week, Reuters quoted him as saying.
Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.
"We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground battle," he said in an address from an undisclosed location.
He spoke as Israeli airstrikes on targets in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon continued, extending a two-week wave of attacks that has eliminated several Hezbollah commanders but also killed around 1,000 Lebanese and forced a million from their homes , according to the Lebanese government.
The losses were Hezbollah's heaviest since Iran's Revolutionary Guards created the group in 1982 to counter Israel's offensive in Lebanon. Nasrallah had built into Lebanon's most powerful military and political force, with wide influence in the Middle East.
Now it faces the challenge of replacing its leader, who was hailed as a hero by his supporters for standing up to Israel, despite the West declaring him a "mastermind" of terrorism.
"We will elect a general secretary of the party at the earliest opportunity... and take the leadership and positions permanently," Kassem said.
Qassem said Hezbollah fighters continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 km into Israeli territory and were ready to face any possible Israeli ground invasion.
"What we are doing is the bare minimum... We know the fight may be long," he said. "We will win as we won in the 2006 liberation in the face of the Israeli enemy," he added, referring to the last major conflict between the two enemies.
Israel says it will do whatever it takes to return its citizens safely to evacuated communities on its northern border and is not ruling out a ground invasion, with troops actively training for it.
Lebanon's interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, said on Monday that his government is ready to fully implement a UN resolution aimed at ending Hezbollah's armed presence south of the Litani River as part of an agreement to end the war with Israel .
Mikati said the Lebanese army could deploy south of the river, which is about 30 km from the country's southern border.