Hezbollah has for over a month been preparing to hold a mass funeral for its slain leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine, who were killed by Israel in 2024 in its last war with the Iran-backed party.
Hezbollah is aiming to use the funeral into a sort of referendum over its popularity and demonstrate that its supporters continue to stand by it after its heavy losses in the war and after it has been weakened politically in Lebanon.
The party has been calling on supporters in Lebanon and abroad to show up en masse to the funeral that will be held on Sunday.
The government had recently suspended flights from Iran to Beirut due to security concerns, which had left Hezbollah scrambling to find alternative routes to fly its supporters from Iran to Lebanon.
The Iranians have turned to Baghdad and flights from the Iraqi capital to Beirut have been fully booked for days.
Informed sources said Iran’s proxies in Iraq have worked on sending droves of people to the funeral.
Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport has been the scene of a number of disputes between travelers over the insistence of funeral attendees to brandish Nasrallah posters and chant slogans in support of the party.
Nasrallah’s son Mohammed Mehdi has also joined efforts to rally supporters. In an instagram post, he accused “enemies of working against us to prevent the funeral from happening.”
He called on those who can attend to do so and to ignore concerns about traffic and the poor weather.
Meanwhile, security agencies are on alert for any clashes that may erupt on the day of the funeral between Hezbollah supporters and its opponents.
President Joseph Aoun chaired on Friday a security meeting attended by the ministers of defense and interior and heads of security agencies to discuss the measures in place for the funeral.
A security source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the agencies are on their highest alert level throughout the country in anticipation of the funeral.
All precautions and plans are in place to confront any development, it added.
The funeral will likely leave Lebanon at a standstill as Hezbollah supporters flock to Beirut from across the country. Authorities have already suspended flights from Beirut airport on Sunday between 12 and 4 pm.
Hezbollah officials have called on the people to attend the funeral, revealing that travelers and officials from 79 countries are confirmed to be there.
Politically-motivated
Political activist and editor-in-chief of Janoubia website Ali al-Amine said the intense rallying of supporters for the funeral is purely politically-motivated and has nothing to do with the burials.
Hezbollah is using every means at its disposal to rally and pressure supporters to attend the event. Anyone failing to show up will be viewed as a traitor to its cause and will face criticism, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Hezbollah is trying to impose a “new internal equation” to stand against the wave of change that has swept the country following the party’s defeat in the war, Aoun’s election and the formation of a new government that does not include Hezbollah ministers.
The party wants to act against the state building project, Amine warned.
Hezbollah is working on rallying its Shiite popular base because it believes it offers it “protection and immunity,” he went on to say.
Inciting Shiite sectarian sentiments and spending millions of dollars on Nasrallah’s funeral is an attempt to “sanctify” him and turn his burial site into a shrine similar to the Shiite ones in Iraq, Syria and Iran, he said.
Officials from the Iran-backed Houthi militias are also attending the funeral and Information Minister in Yemen’s legitimate government Moammar al-Eryani has called on Lebanese authorities to arrest them on charges of war crimes and human rights violations.
Former Minister Dr. Rashid Derbas told Asharq Al-Awsat that Beirut cannot arrest them without a warrant, which it does not have.
