Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Naim Qassem, deputy secretary-general of Hizbullah, which aired on Al-Manar TV on October 20, 2006.

Naim Qassem: What did Imam Khomeini want us [to do] on Jerusalem Day? To issue communique?s about Jerusalem? To declare that we love Jerusalem? These are things of the past. Jerusalem Day is the day of the weapon, the day of the resistance, the day of liberation by force, the day of Jihad for the sake of Allah - not because we want to use weapons, but because the aggression can only be uprooted with weapons. They use all the means at their disposal to defeat us and to kill our children and women in Palestine and in the entire region. How are we supposed to respond? At the U.N.? With statements about human rights? By crying, or begging for mercy? By no means. We can only respond to them with resistance in all its forms, without giving up the pinnacle, symbol, and basis of the resistance – armed resistance with the power of weapons to liberate Jerusalem.