Home Iran Hezbollah Show Of Strength At Hassan Nasrallahโ€™s Burial On Sunday

Hezbollah Show Of Strength At Hassan Nasrallahโ€™s Burial On Sunday

Slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will be buried in a public ceremony designed to show the movement is neither broken nor defeated
Late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will be buried in a public ceremony on Sunday, somewhere in southern Beirut

Lebanonโ€™s Hezbollah will bury its former leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike, in a mass funeral aimed at showing political strength after the group emerged badly weakened from last yearโ€™s war.

Nasrallah was killed on September 27 in an Israeli airstrike as he met commanders in a bunker in Beirutโ€™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 Shiโ€™ite 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.

The funeral in Beirutโ€™s southern suburbs will also honour Hashem Safieddine, who led Hezbollah for one week after Nasrallahโ€™s death before he was also killed by Israel,
underlining how deeply Israeli intelligence had penetrated the paramilitary group. He will be buried in the south on Monday.

โ€œThe funeral is a launchpad for the next phase. A great funeral that draws hundreds of thousands is a way of telling everyone that Hezbollah still exists, that it is still the main
Shiโ€™ite actor in Lebanon,โ€ said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.


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Israel killed thousands of Hezbollah fighters and inflicted huge destruction in Beirutโ€™s southern suburbs and other areas of Lebanon where its supporters live. The impact on Hezbollah was compounded by the ousting of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, severing the supply route to Iran.

Its weakened stature has been reflected in Lebanonโ€™s post-war politics, with the group unable to impose its will in the formation of a new government and language legitimising its arsenal omitted from the new cabinetโ€™s policy statement.

Sheikh Sadeq al-Nabulsi, a cleric close to Hezbollah, said adversaries in Lebanon and abroad believed the group had been defeated, but the funeral would be a message that this was not the case. It would be a โ€œbattle to prove Hezbollahโ€™s existenceโ€.

The ceremony will be held at Lebanonโ€™s biggest sports arena โ€“ Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium on the outskirts of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs.  Nasrallah will then be buried at a dedicated site nearby.

With Reuters inputs