BEIRUT — On a Friday night in September, a squadron of Israeli warplanes streaked via the skies of Lebanon and dropped some 85 tons in daisy-chained, bunker-buster bombs on a number of buildings within the Dahieh, the Hezbollah-dominated suburbs south of the capital Beirut.
The missiles stabbed deep into the bottom, obliterating two metropolis blocks together with their goal: Hezbollah’s subterranean headquarters, the place Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s chief and a longtime nemesis for Israel, was assembly along with his lieutenants. He was declared useless quickly thereafter.
On Sunday, virtually 5 months later, tens of hundreds converged close to that spot in Dahieh for his or her fallen chief’s burial, taking part in an elaborate present of defiance meant to show that the Iran-backed group, although bruised in its battle with Israel, was on no account a spent drive.
Sunday morning noticed Beirut’s streets flooded with Lebanese troops and policemen attempting to handle visitors snarled by lots of mourners making their approach to the capital’s stadium for the beginning of an hours-long commemoration ceremony.
They walked into the stadium previous two-story excessive banners depicting a smiling Nasrallah alongside his cousin and designated successor, Hashem Safieddine, who was killed in a separate Israeli airstrike. Many carried Lebanese or Hezbollah’s yellow-on-green flags; others raised posters of a few of their family members who had been killed within the battle. Effectively earlier than midday, the stadium — which at a capability of greater than 50,000 is Lebanon’s largest — was full.
A kind of in attendance was Khawlah Ahmad Tlais, a 36-year-old who misplaced 12 relations within the battle.
A trailer carrying the coffins containing the our bodies of Hezbollah’s former chief Hassan Nasrallah and his cousin and successor, Hashem Safieddine, drives via the group because it enters the Sports activities Metropolis Stadium throughout a funeral procession in Beirut on Sunday.
(Hassan Ammar / Related Press)
“It’s 13 with the Sayed,” referring to Nasrallah with an honorific. He’s a part of my household too,” she mentioned, holding up a poster with photos of her deceased family members, with Nasrallah occupying the highest spot.
Amongst these she misplaced was her brother, a Hezbollah commander she mentioned was returning house on the eve of the cease-fire that got here into place in November. An Israeli strike focused his home, killing him, together with Tlais’ dad and mom, nephews and different family members. Tlais’ house was additionally destroyed.
“I feel pride that I sacrificed, that I gave for this path,” she mentioned, her voice somber however agency.
“Those who don’t understand why we are happy to do this don’t understand our cause. We’re telling our Sayed, you taught us to live in dignity, but you didn’t teach us how to live without you.”
The battle with Israel began final October, when Hezbollah started a rocket marketing campaign on north Israel in help of its ally, the Palestinian group Hamas after its Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel. Months of tit-for-tat strikes adopted, displacing tens of hundreds of individuals on each side of the Lebanon-Israel border.
Hostilities escalated in September when Israel launched punishing airstrikes after which an invasion of southern Lebanon. By the point the cease-fire was solid, the demise toll in Lebanon was virtually 4,000, with greater than 4 occasions that determine injured, in line with Lebanese authorities, which mentioned most have been civilian casualties.
Flames and smoke rise from an Israeli airstrike within the Beirut space in October 2024.
(Bilal Hussein / Related Press)
Israel military troops have since withdrawn from most of south Lebanon save for 5 hilltop positions close to the border; its air drive continues to pound what it says are Hezbollah targets. In the course of the funeral, the Israeli army carried out airstrikes on south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley within the nation’s east.
Hezbollah is assumed to have misplaced hundreds of its cadres, together with the higher echelons of its army management, and a good portion of its arsenal within the battle. Many in Lebanon see the group as having suffered a mortal blow, however its leaders insist the actual fact of its survival proves in any other case.
“The resistance remains, and is strong, and is continuing,” mentioned Naim Al-Qassem, the group’s new chief, in a televised speech.
It was a message that resonated with the group’s supporters.
“Just look around you, at everyone gathered here — our presence here is victory,” mentioned Batool Hamdoon, 37, who was within the stadium along with her two sons, 13-year-old Hassan and Mohammad, 11. Each kids wore army fatigues adorned with Hezbollah’s insignia. On her lapel was a pin with the face of Ali Dhawi, her stepson, a Hezbollah operative killed in an Israeli assault throughout the battle.
Regardless of all she had misplaced, Hamdoon was unwavering in her help for Hezbollah; she meant for each Hassan and Mohammad to be inducted into the group’s preventing ranks.
“That’s why I put them in uniform today. So people know they are on the right path,” she mentioned.
With Nasrallah’s burial, Hezbollah lays to relaxation a determine who left an indelible mark on the faction he helped evolve over greater than 30 years of his stewardship. Preparations for what was deliberate to be a large occasion started weeks earlier, with Hezbollah cadres racing to construct a mausoleum for Nasrallah’s internment, and a corporation committee coordinating 70 worldwide delegations, together with hundreds of activists and social media influencers anticipated to participate.
One of many bigger delegations was from Hezbollah’s foremost patron, Iran, which dispatched its overseas minister, Abbass Aragchi, and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.
“Today’s funeral will make the world see that the resistance is alive, that Hezbollah is alive, that this people is loyal to its values, and that the path of the resistance will continue,” Aragchi mentioned. He referred to the so-called Axis of Resistance, the Iran-led community of paramilitary factions — from Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza — arrayed towards the U.S and Israel.
“Sayed Hassan was above the first rank. He was a spike in the eye of Israel and the U.S.,” mentioned Adel, a 34-year-old Iraqi with a paramilitary faction — one in all hundreds of Iraqis who had flown from Baghdad for the ceremony. He gave his first identify solely to keep away from harassment.
Individuals attend the funeral ceremony of the Hezbollah’s former chief Hassan Nasrallah and his cousin and successor, Hashem Safieddine, on the Sports activities Metropolis Stadium in Beirut on Sunday.
(Hassan Ammar / Related Press)
“He was a figure not just for Lebanon, but all the world. When we heard of his martyrdom, all of us were affected.”
Because the afternoon wore on, a platform bearing the coffins of Nasrallah and Safieddine made its method via the group, with many throwing scarves, items of material and mementos at attendants, who touched them to the coffins earlier than tossing them again.
At one level, a quartet of Israeli warplanes roared above the stadium earlier than arcing towards the ocean — a “clear message,” in line with a press release on X from Israel’s protection minister Israel Katz, that “whoever threatens to destroy Israel and attacks Israel — that will be the end of him.
“You will specialize in funerals — and we will specialize in victories,” he wrote.
Regardless of Hezbollah’s rhetoric, the funeral comes at a fragile time for the group, which earlier than the battle had cultivated an air of invincibility as Lebanon’s strongest political faction and a preventing drive thought-about superior to the Lebanese military.
Battered by the battle, Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon now spy a possibility to interrupt what they are saying is the group’s stranglehold over the state. In latest weeks, anti-Hezbollah events labored collectively to decide on a president and prime minister espousing insurance policies to defang the group and strip it of its arsenal.
Hezbollah’s Al-Qassem mentioned these banking on the group’s supposed weak point have been mistaken. Although it was ready for the Lebanese authorities to convey a couple of full Israeli withdrawal by diplomatic means, Hezbollah would nonetheless battle when the necessity arose.
“The resistance is still present and strong in numbers and weapons,” he mentioned.
“The inevitable victory is coming.”
