Thousands of supporters of slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah have flown into Beirut for his funeral, which will take place on Sunday nearly five months after he died in an Israeli airstrike.
The 64-year-old terror master was killed in an Israel Defense Forces strike on Hezbollah headquarters in south Beirut on Sept. 27.
The Israeli Air Force conducted a massive strike targeting the headquarters, built underground beneath residential buildings, in the heart of the Dahiyeh district of the Lebanese capital.
His death was a massive blow to the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terrorist group. Under his leadership beginning in 1992, it wreaked terror against the Jewish state and Sunni Muslims.
Israel also killed Nasrallah’s cousin and successor, Hashem Safieddine, slain in an IAF strike on a Beirut suburb six days later. Safieddine will be buried in his hometown in Southern Lebanon.
The two bodies had been temporarily buried in secret locations, according to the Associated Press.
Crowds are expected to assemble at Beirut’s main sports stadium for a funeral ceremony before Nasrallah’s interment, the report added.
An Iraqi Transport Ministry official was cited by AP as saying that up to 6,000 Iraqis have traveled to Beirut over the last several days. Iraq has a majority Shi’ite population with a big following of Hezbollah.
Among those who traveled to Beirut was the anti-Israeli American commentator Jackson Hinkle, who frequently spreads anti-Western propaganda via his social media accounts.
“I am honored to be attending the funeral,” Hinkle posted on X after arriving this past week in Beirut.
Earlier this month, Hezbollah’s leadership decided to hold a “grand procession” for its slain chief near the Beirut airport, the head of the Lebanese terrorist organization Naim Qassem said in a televised speech.
“We hope that it will be a grand funeral procession befitting this great personality,” he said in remarks translated by Agence France-Presse. JNS
{Matzav.com}