A sea of black, dappled with the canary-yellow flags of the Party of God, filled the Camille Chamoun sports stadium on the outskirts of Beirut. It had lain abandoned for five years, but not a single seat was left empty on that crisp and bright Sunday afternoon.
Hundreds of thousands poured into the capital for the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the assassinated secretary-general of Hezbollah, and his would-be successor Hashem Safieddine. Both were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes almost five months ago, with the funeral delayed for security reasons.
After the ceremony, the crowd made its way south in a three-kilometre-long procession to the site where Nasrallah was laid to rest, on a patch of land between two main roads leading to Beirut’s airport. Safieddine will be buried in his hometown, Deir Qanoun al-Nahr, in southern Lebanon on Monday.
“We are all the children of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah,” Abbas al-Masry, 30, told The New Arab as he waited for the coffins to emerge. “This a great day. We’re here to renew our promise. We will not disarm; we will not stop the resistance. This is impossible.”
Al-Masry and his family had travelled several hours through the snow from northeastern Lebanon to be in Beirut. Many others had flown in from abroad. “We are all with Sayyed Qassem. Whatever he says, we are ready for it. We are with him until death,” al-Masry said, referring to Hezbollah’s new secretary-general Naim Qassem.
Hezbollah after Nasrallah: Hurt, but still standing
After a series of rousing speeches, poetry recitals and religious anthems, two coffins draped in yellow silk emerged from a curtain on the main podium. The atmosphere in the stadium was immediately transformed as thousands of people, who minutes earlier had been shouting in proud defiance, began to weep.
Then, a sudden roar brought all eyes to the sky. Four Israeli fighter jets flew low above the stadium as the procession inched along with the bodies of Nasrallah and Safieddine. The crowd, eyes wet with tears, erupted instantly in deafening reply with shouts of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”.
Ibrahim Fakih, a local to Beirut, was undeterred by the Israeli warplanes. “As long as Israel is occupying our lands in the south, there will be resistance. They can bomb us; they can kill us. They killed our leader, but look, did you see the reply?”
Commenting on the flyover, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that this would “send a clear message: Whoever threatens to destroy Israel and attacks it will seal their fate.”
As well as being a sombre occasion, the funeral was intended to be a show of force – despite Hezbollah’s crippling military defeats and their loss of influence in Lebanon’s post-war politics. This was an opportunity for those gathered to pledge their continued support for Hezbollah and its new chief, Naim Qassem. The slogan, chosen specially for the funeral, towered above the stadium in giant letters: “We remain steadfast in our pledge.”
During a televised speech, Qassem vowed to follow in “the path” of Nasrallah. “We will complete this path even if we are all killed, even if our homes are destroyed over our heads. We will not abandon the choice of resistance,” he said. His speech was interrupted as the quartet of Israel jets tore across the sky a second time.
But Qassem will not find it easy to fill his predecessor’s shoes. There are not many figures in history who, among their followers, commanded the adulation reserved for Hassan Nasrallah, who became synonymous with Hezbollah itself.
His portrait – iconically recognisable by its ashen beard, arched eyebrows and beguiling smile – adorns roadsides and buildings everywhere in the Shia areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah draws its support.
At the militant group’s rallies and funerals, the usual chant would always ring out: Labayka, ya Hussein; Labayka, ya Nasrallah – “At your service, Hussein; at your service, Nasrallah.” The Hezbollah leader’s name is issued alongside that other hero of the Shia, Hussein ibn Ali, the martyred grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.
“For the supporters of Hezbollah, Nasrallah was everything … and he was the most charismatic leader the Shia have seen in hundreds of years. I can’t remember in the history of the Shia a commander of this calibre,” political analyst Elijah Magnier told The New Arab.
The son of a greengrocer, Nasrallah was one of Hezbollah’s early commanders and served as its secretary-general for 32 years. He became one of the most powerful men in Lebanon as he transformed Hezbollah from a rag-tag militia fighting the 1982 Israeli occupation of Lebanon, into the best-armed nonstate actor in the world and a major player in Lebanese politics. For Iran, Hezbollah was the cornerstone of its regional “Axis of Resistance” against the US and Israel.
“He’s not replaceable. Naim Qassem has the curse of succeeding the most charismatic leader for Hezbollah,” Magnier said. “The objectives of Hezbollah have changed with the assassination of Nasrallah. Hezbollah is no longer a regional army and has been transformed into a domestic organisation.”
Nasrallah’s death in late September by a massive Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs left Hezbollah and its adherents reeling. Coming ten days after Israel’s pager attacks, this was the most painful blow for the group following a series of military setbacks during this latest war with their southern neighbour.
After an intense two-month Israeli onslaught that ended with a truce deal in late November, Hezbollah’s top brass has been almost eradicated, and its military and financial assets have been left in tatters. For Hezbollah’s regional foes, particularly in Israel and Syria, Nasrallah’s death offered the encouraging sign that the group’s dominance, under the care and tutelage of Iran, was over.
Nasrallah was buried in a country much changed since his death almost five months ago, and the wider region has changed too. The Middle East has witnessed a Sunni resurgence, not least in the toppling of the Assad dynasty by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. With Assad gone, Iran lost its influence in Syria by way of its “Shia Crescent”, and Hezbollah lost a vital overland route for its arms and funding.
Lebanon’s hero and villain in one
But just as Nasrallah was revered, he was also reviled. For many in Lebanon, and some among the Shia, Nasrallah’s funeral will mark the end of a bitter chapter in the country’s crisis-ridden history, and it will bring hope for a shift in Lebanon’s political architecture for the first time in decades.
Michael Young, a Lebanon expert for Carnegie Middle East Center, said that for the people who oppose Hezbollah, the funeral “will symbolise the closing of a page.”
“Nothing the party does can really revive itself in the foreseeable future. Perhaps even ever. Because the destruction that this war has brought on Lebanon is something that the party cannot sustain,” Young told The New Arab. “It’s time for the party to try to secure gains in the political arena, and they can do this in exchange for their weapons.”
However, a weakened Hezbollah is unlikely to be a panacea for Lebanon’s disastrous domestic politics.
“The main problem in Lebanon is that the country is governed by a cartel of sectarian politicians, with their allies in the financial sector and the banking sector, who have created lucrative conditions for themselves,” Young added.
“What will be more important is the generational shift. A lot of the politicians who were active during the war are either getting very old, or have died, or have transferred power to their sons…They may be encouraged to create a system that is more effective than this failed state in which we live today.”
Alex Martin Astley is a freelance journalist based in Beirut, covering conflict, foreign policy, and social justice issues
Follow him on X: @AlexMAstley
