Hundreds of thousands of people packed into a stadium in Beirut and the streets outside Sunday for the funeral of Hezbollah’s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Nasrallah died after Israel’s air force dropped more than 80 bombs on the militant group’s main operations room in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital. His death was a major blow for the Iran-backed militant group and political party that he had transformed into a potent force in the Middle East. Hezbollah is a U.S. designated terrorist group.
Nasrallah was one of the group’s founders and led it for more than 30 years, enjoying wide influence among Iran-backed groups in the region. He was widely respected in the so-called Iran-led axis of resistance that included Iraqi, Yemeni and Palestinian factions.
Nasrallah also became an iconic figure in other parts of the Arab world after Hezbollah fought Israel to a draw in a brutal monthlong war in 2006, but the group’s image in much of the region suffered after it intervened on the side of former President Bashar Assad in Syria’s civil war.
Hezbollah had called 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.
A Lebanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment estimated the crowd size at 450,000.
“This massive crowd confirms that Hezbollah is still the most popular party at the Lebanese level, and as a result, all the talk that Hezbollah is weak or degraded is out of place,” said Ali Fayyad, a lawmaker with the group’s political wing, who attended the funeral.
Sahar al-Attar, a mourner who traveled from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley for the funeral said,”We would have come even under bullets” to attend Nasrallah’s burial.
Nasrallah shared the funeral with his cousin and successor, Hashem Safieddine, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb a few days later. Nasrallah will be laid to rest later Sunday in Beirut while Safieddine will be buried in his hometown in southern Lebanon. Both had temporarily been buried in secret locations.
As the coffins were paraded before the huge crowd, men riding on the platforms with them tossed flowers, while some in the crowd tossed clothing articles in the hope they would come in contact with the coffins, believing it would bless them.
Outside of the stadium, giant screens were placed along the road leading to the airport, titling the funeral: “We are committed to the covenant.”
Senior Hezbollah official Ali Daamoush told reporters Saturday that about 800 prominent figures from 65 countries would attend the funeral in addition to thousands of individuals and activists from around the world.
Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were among the officials who arrived at the Lebanese capital’s main sports stadium. Lebanon’s parliament speaker and representatives of the president and prime minister were also in attendance.
The funeral also drew non-official participants from outside of Lebanon, including some from Western countries.
Irish activist Tara O’Grady waved the flag of her country and said that she came to Beirut “to stand with the people of Lebanon and their resistance against the Zionist regime who are brutally continuing to bomb the south of Lebanon.” She likened Nasrallah to Irish early-20th century revolutionary Michael Collins.
As O’Grady spoke with The Associated Press, four Israeli warplanes flew at low altitude over Beirut while Nasrallah’s coffin was paraded into the stadium. The crowd chanted: “Death to Israel” and “at your service, Nasrallah.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the fighter jets flying over the funeral “send a clear message: Whoever threatens to annihilate Israel and strike Israel — that will be his end.”
Hours before and during the funeral, the Israeli military also launched a series of strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon.
As part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the war with Israel on Nov. 27, Hezbollah is not supposed to have an armed presence along the border with Israel.
The group was dealt another blow with the fall of the Assad family’s five-decade rule in Syria in early December, which blocked a main route for the flow of weapons and money from Iran. Its rivals have been calling on it to lay down its weapons all over Lebanon and become a political faction.
Nasrallah’s successor, Hezbollah’s current Secretary-General Naim Kassem, said in a televised speech played at the funeral that “the resistance is still present and strong in numbers and weapons, and the inevitable victory is coming.” He was not at the stadium.
Kassem added that “Israel must withdraw from the areas it still occupies” in southern Lebanon, referring to five strategic border points where Israeli forces remain.
“We won’t allow America to control our country,” he said. “Israel will not take with politics what they did not take in the war.”
