THOUSANDS ATTEND FUNERAL OF LATE HEZBOLLAH CHIEF NASRALLAH IN LEBANON

Sun 23 February 2025:

Thousands of mourners gathered in the capital Beirut on Sunday for the funeral of former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

The state news agency NNA said the mass funeral for Nasrallah and senior Hezbollah member Hashem Safieddine started at the Camille Chamoun Sports City amid tight security.

Nasrallah was assassinated in Israeli airstrikes in Beirut on Sept. 27, 2024. Safieddine was killed in a similar airstrike on Oct. 3.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place in Lebanon since Nov. 27, ending months of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah that escalated into a full-scale conflict in September.

Reporting from the site of the funeral procession in Beirut, Al Jazeera correspondent Zeina Khodr said Nasrallah was like a “father figure” for Lebanon’s Shia community, among whom Hezbollah has a “significant following”.

“Nasrallah was not just a leader for them, he was a father figure, a man who protected them, because this is a community in Lebanon that has long felt marginalised,” she said.

“What they are trying to say is we are still strong, we still have political strength,” Khodr said, referring to the mourners.

Nasrallah, the face of Hezbollah for more than three decades, and Safieddine had temporarily been buried in secret locations over fears their funerals could be targeted by Israeli forces.

Nasrallah will be buried in a piece of land near the airport road in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Safieddine will be laid to rest in his hometown of Deir Qanoun en-Nahr in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese state media reported that Israeli planes flew at low altitude over Beirut during the funeral ceremony.

“The hostile warplanes flew at low altitude over the skies of Beirut and its suburbs,” the National News Agency said, hours after it reported Israeli air attacks targeting the area between Qleileh and Sammaaiyah in south Lebanon’s Tyre district.

The Israeli military said it targeted rocket launchers in southern Lebanon which it said threatened its civilians.

“A short while ago, the IDF [Israeli military] conducted a precise intelligence-based strike on a military site containing rocket launchers and weapons in Lebanese territory, in which Hezbollah activity was identified,” a military statement said.

“Additionally, several rocket launchers that posed an imminent threat to Israeli civilians were struck in southern Lebanon.”

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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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