There are many points worth addressing from the speech delivered yesterday by Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem. Beyond the monotonous delivery, which makes reading the text more appealing than watching and listening to the speaker, and the content that seems pre-recorded over 24 hours before, preceding the events of the day before and the extension of the ceasefire, the speech underscores the collapse of the image Hezbollah has cultivated over decades.

Hezbollah crafted an image centered around the phrase “the truthful promise.” If it promised, it delivered. If it threatened, it acted. Yet today, particularly since the ceasefire agreement and the celebration of a hollow victory, Hezbollah has neither kept its promises nor carried out any threats.

In recent weeks, several of its MPs issued warnings of retaliation against Israel should its aggression persist, and if it failed to withdraw from occupied territories. Israel did not withdraw, killed 24 people on Sunday, continued destroying homes, and Hezbollah remained passive. Hezbollah calls this “restraint,” while knowing it would pay a heavy price for any reaction, leaving it paralyzed in the face of Israel’s evil power and brutality—except for placing civilians in the crossfire of the Israeli killing machine, which yesterday showed no mercy as it gunned down a father in Aitaroun in front of his children.

Even more disheartening, Qassem mentioned in his speech that Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement 1,350 times, reducing Hezbollah from a resistance force to a mere tally counter of violations, standing helplessly with no action, no power, no leaders, and no weapons to make a difference.