Fri 21 February 2025:

Lebanon’s Hezbollah will bury its former leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli air strike, in a mass funeral aimed at showing political strength after the group emerged badly weakened from last year’s war.

Nasrallah was killed on 27 September 2024 in an Israeli air strike as he met commanders in a bunker in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stunning blow in the early phase of an Israeli offensive that has left the Iran-backed group a shadow of its former self.

Revered by Hezbollah supporters, Nasrallah led the Shia Muslim group through decades of conflict with Israel, overseeing its transformation into a military force with regional sway and becoming one of the most prominent Arab figures in generations.

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Complicated legacy of Hassan Nasrallah in the Middle East

Within Lebanon, Hezbollah has always been viewed with unease, having become a state within a state while operating with relative impunity. Indeed, it has always been closer to Tehran than Beirut, operating as an unofficial paramilitary for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

During the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Sunni clerics wondered whom to support. One of Saudi Arabia’s most widely respected senior scholars at the time, Abdullah ibn Jibrin, was clear: supporting Hezbollah was forbidden. “It is not permissible to support this rejectionist party […] and it is not permissible to pray for them,” he declared in a fatwa. His reasoning was that Hezbollah’s beliefs made them heretics, preventing “authentic” Muslims from supporting them.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, then the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood with a huge global following, decided for a suspension of sectarian hostilities. “It is the duty of Muslims around the world to support the Lebanese resistance,” he said.

This unified support would not last. When the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Hezbollah entered the conflict in support of President Bashar al-Assad, helping his forces brutalise the opposition.

As the Syrian war proceeded, Hezbollah only became more partisan. They supported Assad fully as he employed increasingly desperate tactics to reclaim lost territories, including besieging and starving opposition held areas. In Zabadani and Madaya, for example, 65 people are believed to have died from starvation or malnutrition in 2016, after Hezbollah participated in months-long siege under Assad’s “starve or surrender” policy. (After Nasrallah’s death, Assad described him as “immortal”.) Meanwhile, within Lebanon, Hezbollah killed critics with impunity, and operated in Tehran’s, rather than Beirut’s, best interests.

This is why Idlib – the last redoubt of the Syrian revolution – erupted in joy at the news of Nasrallah’s demise on 27 September. Hadi Abdullah, a Syrian journalist, uploaded a video of the celebrations to social media the night he was killed. “These people were displaced by Hezbollah and their children killed,” he wrote of the people celebrating. “They have the right to be happy, even if just a little, after 14 years of oppression.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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