Beirut:
Tens of thousands of mourners gathered in a stadium on the outskirts of Beirut on Sunday to attend the funeral of Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital. Dressed in black, men, women and children from Lebanon and beyond walked on foot in the biting cold to reach the site of the ceremony, delayed for months due to security reasons after Hezbollah’s death in September.
The ceremony was held at Lebanon’s biggest sports arena – Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium on the outskirts of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. Video footages from the jam-packed stadium were widely shared on social media which showed people waving Hezbollah flags or carrying portraits of Nasrallah ahead of his funeral.
Hassan Nasrallah, who guided the Lebanese movement for more than three decades, was killed when Israel’s air force dropped more than 80 bombs on Hezbollah’s main operations room on September 27, 2024. His death was a major blow for the Iran-backed group that the late leader transformed into a potent force in the Middle East.
Thousands Gathered To Say Final Goodbye
Since Saturday, roads into Beirut have been reportedly clogged with carloads of Hezbollah supporters travelling in from the movement’s other power centres in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, in Lebanon’s east.
Giant portraits of the bushy-bearded Nasrallah and his chosen successor Hashem Safieddine — who was killed in another Israeli air strike before he could assume the post — have been plastered on walls and bridges across south Beirut. One was also hung above a stage erected on the pitch of the packed Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium where the funeral for both leaders is to be held.
The stadium has a capacity of around 50,000 but Hezbollah organisers have installed tens of thousands of extra seats on the pitch and outside, where mourners will be able to follow the ceremony on a giant screen. Tight security measures have also been taken, including the closure of major roads in the area of the funeral.
Lebanese army and police forces were placed on alert and the army has banned the use of drones in Beirut and its suburbs during the day. Flights to and from Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport were set to halt for four hours starting at noon.
Hezbollah has invited top Lebanese officials to the ceremony, with Iranian Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in attendance.
The funeral is due to start at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT). A procession will then follow to the site near the airport highway where Nasrallah will be buried. Safieddine will be interred in his southern hometown of Deir Qanun al-Nahr on Monday.
Senior Hezbollah official Ali Daamoush told reporters Saturday that about 800 personalities from 65 countries will be attending the funeral in addition to thousands of individuals and activists from around the world.
“Come from every home, village and city so that we tell the enemy that this resistance will stay and is ready in the field,” Daamoush said, referring to Israel.
People Mourn Leader ‘Dearest to Soul’
Nasrallah was Hezbollah’s leader for more than 30 years and one of its founders. He enjoyed wide influence among Iran-backed groups in the region and was widely respected in the so-called Iran-led axis of resistance that included Iraqi, Yemeni and Palestinian factions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi, in a speech from Beirut, described the dead leaders as “two heroes of the resistance” and vowed that “the path of resistance will continue”.
One of the mourners, Umm Mahdi, 55, who had come “to see him (Nasrallah) one last time and see his shrine” told AFP that “we feel sadness”.
“This is the least we can do for Sayyed who gave up everything,” she added, using an honorific.
Another attendee Khouloud Hamieh, 36, told AFP she came from the east to mourn the leader she said was “dearest to our souls”.
“The feeling is indescribable, my heart is beating (so fast),” she said, her eyes filled with tears.
Despite cold weather and large crowds, she said she would not have missed the funeral for anything. “Even if we had to crawl to get here, we would still come” she said.
Sahar al-Attar, a mourner who travelled from Lebanon’s Bekaa valley for the funeral told Associated Press she still “cannot believe what happened.”
“We would have come even under bullets” to attend Nasrallah’s burial, she said. “It is an indescribable feeling.”
Hezbollah’s call
Hezbollah has been calling on its supporters to attend the funeral in large numbers in what appears to be a move to show that the group remains powerful after suffering major blows during a 14-month war with Israel that left many of its senior political and military officials dead.
As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the war with Israel on November 27, Hezbollah is not supposed to have an armed presence along the border with Israel. Hezbollah’s rivals have been calling on the group to lay down its weapons all over Lebanon and become a political faction.
Israeli Strike
Hours before the funeral was set to start, the Israeli military launched a series of strikes in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army said in a statement that it had “conducted a precise intelligence-based strike on a military site containing rocket launchers and weapons in Lebanese territory.”