57-year-old Moussa Dirani brought his teenage son to the memorial service. “It is very sad and painful to see this site,” he said. “But the resistance does not stop with Nasrallah, his death gives us the strength to continue on his path.”
Hundreds of Hezbollah flags at the event will “continue to fly,” said 34-year-old Fida Nasreddin. “We are with Hassan Nasrallah until our last breath,” she said.
Nasrallah’s assassination shocked Lebanon and the world at large when the news broke in September. He has rarely appeared in public since Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel, and has always been under heavy security.
He was one of a number of senior Hezbollah figures killed by Israeli airstrikes between September and the ceasefire agreement signed on Wednesday.
The group has been hit hard by the killings, but the sense of celebration in Hezbollah-dominated areas of Beirut “cannot be dismissed as insincere,” said David Wood, a Lebanon analyst at Crisis Group.
“The achievements that Hezbollah has promoted – continued ground operations against Israel, ensuring that tens of thousands of Israelis are unable to return to their homes, and severely impacting Israel’s economy – I don’t think these achievements are anything, and I think , that many of his fans will see in this an element of victory.”
Additional reporting by Joanna Mazjub.
