Only hundreds of Hezbollah supporters gathered in the group’s stronghold in Dahieh south of Beirut on Saturday night to mourn the death of the Iranian terrorist proxy’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The mourners attended a vigil on the rubble of the site where a targeted Israeli airstrike killed the arch enemy of the Jewish state on Sept. 27, AFP reported.
Many of the mourners of the group’s longtime secretary-general were in tears as they carried candles and portraits of him and planted the yellow and green flag of the U.S.- and U.K.-proscribed terrorist group in and the around the massive crater left by the Israeli attack. The scene was colored by red lights.
The site where Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli strike on September 27 has become a memorial where hundreds came Saturday evening to pay their respects pic.twitter.com/wgfT4f7nCH
— Acil Tabbara (@aciltab) November 30, 2024
Loudspeakers played speeches by Nasrallah.
“Sayyed Hassan was everything to us. If only we had died and he was still alive,” Lama, a 30-year-old woman who brought her two young children to the event, told AFP, adding that “he left a big void.”
“I still can’t believe he’s dead,” Lea, an 18-year-old student who had come with her friends, told the French news agency.
The Sept. 27 Israeli Air Force attack that struck an underground bunker claimed the lives of Nasrallah, another high-ranking Hezbollah commander and a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
To prevent his funeral from becoming a target for Israeli forces, Nasrallah was buried in a secret location.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon took effect last Wednesday, ending nearly 14 months of hostilities.
Hezbollah launched some 16,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Gaza-based terrorist organization’s massacre in southern Israel.
Nearly 70,000 residents of northern Israel have been internally displaced due to the cross-border attacks from Lebanon. During “Operation Northern Arrows,” 45 Israeli civilians and 79 IDF soldiers were killed, according to the most recent data from the Alma Research and Education Center, which monitors the northern fronts.
Hezbollah is believed to have suffered as many as 10 times the casualties as it did during the month-long 2006 Second Lebanon War.
According to an assessment by Israel’s Channel 12 News and the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, the Israeli military believes that approximately 3,000 terrorists were killed in Lebanon, including at least 11 brigade-level commanders, 37 battalion commanders and 46 company commanders.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and noncombatants, reports 3,823 killed and 15,895 injured during the conflict.
A source familiar with Hezbollah’s operations told Reuters last week that as many as 4,000 terrorists may have been killed, the vast majority of them since September, when Jerusalem stepped up its offensive in Lebanon after adding the return of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel to its official war goals.
Hezbollah’s chain of command was also devastated, as highlighted by the targeted killing of Nasrallah. Other high-ranking officials killed include Hashem Safi al-Din, Nasrallah’s successor; Radwan Force commanders Ibrahim Aqil and Wisam al-Tuwail; Ali Karaki, commander of the Southern Front; and Fuad Shukr, the terrorist group’s chief of staff.
Furthermore, some 80% of Hezbollah’s stockpile of 150,000 to 200,000 rockets and 70% of its drone arsenal were destroyed during the war, according to the Channel 12/INSS assessment.
