Hezbollah carried out a public funeral on Sunday for its slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah, attended by tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians, nearly five months after he was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike.
The choreographed ceremony, which they acknowledged was an attempt to demonstrate the group’s support in the country, took place in Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Sports City stadium, and supporters filled it and the surrounding streets.
The “massive crowd in Lebanon is an expression of loyalty to the resistance,” Hezbollah’s current leader, Naim Qassem, said in a video speech that was played in the stadium. “The resistance endures and remains present, regardless of what you may think,” he added. “Do not mistake our patience for weakness.”
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Sunday’s ceremony also commemorates the assassination of Nasrallah’s successor, Hashem Safieddine, who was in charge for only a couple of days before he, too, was killed in an Israeli strike in early October.
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The Israeli Air Force had aircraft circling the skies of Beirut above the funeral, “sending a clear message,” according to Israel’s Ministry of Defense Israel Katz. “Whoever threatens to destroy Israel and attacks Israel — that will be their end.”
Israel’s military also carried out several airstrikes in Lebanese territory on Sunday.
Hezbollah began cross-border aerial attacks into northern Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Gaza-based Hamas carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in Israeli history, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping another 250 others. Israel and Hezbollah carried out daily cross-border strikes while Israel invaded Gaza to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians were evacuated from the area near the border.
Israel began more aggressively targeting Hezbollah in the fall of 2024 when its army invaded southern Lebanon, and its aerial campaign dramatically increased. They decapitated the group’s senior ranks in a matter of weeks.
Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire deal in November that was designed to enforce the United Nations Security Council resolution that ended their last war in the summer of 2005. UNSC Resolution 1701, which ended their monthlong 2006 conflict, called for Israel to withdraw from its positions in southern Lebanon and for Hezbollah to move further away from the Lebanon-Israel border.
Hezbollah was supposed to move north of the Litani River, a portion of which runs parallel and roughly 18 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border. The U.S.-designated terrorist organization never complied with the mandate, and the 2024 agreement is meant to correct that.
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As a part of the current deal, Israel will withdraw from its positions over time as they are replaced by U.N.-mandated or Lebanese Army forces. The deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw was extended due to Israeli concerns that the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon and Lebanese forces were not ready to take over the areas.
Hezbollah has long had a presence in Lebanese governance, but the United States is pushing Lebanon’s newly elected president, Joseph Aoun, to further isolate the group by not allowing representatives to join the governing body.