Beirut Prepares for the Funeral of Hezbollah’s Late Leader, Hassan Nasrallah
Beirut (Quds News Network)- Tens of thousands of people gathered in Beirut early Sunday to attend the funeral of Hezbollah’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah, almost five months after his assassination in an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital.
The funeral of Nasrallah and Safieddine will be held on Sunday in Beirut with a central ceremony scheduled for 1 pm at the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium on the outskirts of southern suburbs.
Nasrallah will be laid to rest later Sunday at a dedicated site nearby that will be made into a holy shrine for the slain leader while his cousin and successor Hashem Safieddine, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb a few days later, will be laid to rest in his hometown in southern Lebanon. The two had temporarily been buried in secret locations. Hezbollah earlier this month announced plans for their official funerals.
Nasrallah’s funeral “is not a day of grief or a day of farewell, but a day of loyalty and renewal of our covenants and pledges to our leader,” Hussein Haj Hassan, a Hezbollah member of parliament, said at a ceremony in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday.
He said the funeral would be a moment to show to “allies as well as to our enemies and opponents that we have not and will not weaken or cower.”
“And if you increase the challenge,” Hassan continued, “we will respond with determination.”
Crowds gathered overnight in the city’s Dahieh quarter, a Hezbollah stronghold where the two Hezbollah chiefs were assassinated in the Israeli attacks.
According to the organizers, visiting delegations from 60 to 70 countries will participate. There will be 80,000 to 85,000 people inside the sports stadium and an additional 100,000 outside.
Officials from around the region including Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to attend the funeral. Lebanese officials including the parliament speaker and representatives of the president and prime minister are also expected to attend the funeral, believed to be Lebanon’s largest in two decades.
Hezbollah called for masses to attend the funeral.
جماهير كبيرة تحتشد في المدينة الرياضية في بيروت للمشاركة في تشييع الشهـــيدين حسن نصــر الله وهاشم صــفي الدين الأمينين العامين لحــزب الله اللذين اغتالهما جيش الاحتلال pic.twitter.com/emKYpmmaCB
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) February 23, 2025
In a press conference on Saturday, deputy chief of Hezbollah’s operational council Ali Daamoush assured everyone that the Lebanese army and security services were responsible for security.
“There are thousands of groups involved in the organization and discipline alongside Hezbollah and the Amal organization.”
He said the funeral would be the day to renew loyalty. “We tell our enemies and our friends that the resistance will remain on the ground. The enemy has not succeeded in destroying it and no one from the outside or within will succeed in crushing it.”
He said Lebanon will not be Israeli. “There will not be a foothold for the Zionists in Lebanon, and it will not be divided. Lebanon will remain a united nation with peace and dignity.”
Hezbollah has given a title to the funeral: “We are committed to the covenant.”
