Hezbollah supporters packed into a stadium in Beirut and nearby streets on Sunday for the funeral of the party'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 group’s main operations room in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital.
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.
Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were among the officials who arrived at the Lebanese capital’s Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium. Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, and representatives of the president and prime minister were also in attendance.
Hours before and during the funeral, the Israeli military also launched a series of strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon. Also on Sunday, the Israeli military released a video that said it shows the airstrike that killed Nasrallah and some of the group’s top military officials on Sept. 27, 2024.
Nasrallah's successor, Hezbollah’s current Secretary-General Naim Qassem, said in a televised speech played at the funeral that Hezbollah would keep following his "path.”
He rejected any control by the "tyrant America" over Lebanon and said: "The resistance is not over, the resistance is still present and ready" to face Israel.
He was not at the stadium.
Qassem added that “Israel must withdraw from the areas it still occupies" in southern Lebanon, referring to more than 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.”
