AhlulBayt News Agency: The Lebanese capital is preparing to hold the funeral of resistance leaders Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his deputy Sayyed Hashim Safieddine, nearly five months after they were assassinated in separate Israeli airstrikes on Beirut.
The streets of Beirut have been decorated with pictures of Nasrallah and Safieddine as well as Iran’s anti-terror icon, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the United States in January 2020.
According to Lebanese media reports, more than 5,000 Hezbollah fighters will be taking part in the burial ceremony of their slain leaders.
People from across Lebanon, especially in southern parts, have been heading to Beirut to participate in the funeral of the two leaders who will be laid to rest in Deir Qanun Al-Nahr, a city in southern Lebanon on Sunday, February 23.
Earlier, a Hezbollah official said delegations from 79 countries are expected to attend the funeral.
A high-ranking delegation from Iran, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, will also travel to Beirut on Sunday to take part in the commemoration ceremony.
Nasrallah, the long-time secretary general of Hezbollah, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 28, 2023.
The attack, which was part of a large-scale Israeli offensive against Hezbollah positions, was carried out using U.S.-supplied bunker-buster bombs that destroyed several buildings and killed a number of Hezbollah commanders, including Nasrallah as well as Iranian General Abbas Nilforoushan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered the assassination of the Hezbollah leader from the UN headquarters in New York.
Hezbollah officially announced the martyrdom of its chief a few weeks later as the search and identification of his body was delayed due to the severity of the destruction and the continued Israeli bombing of the area.
Safieddine, Nasrallah’s deputy and former head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, was killed in October during an Israeli airstrike on Beirut. He had been appointed to replace Nasrallah before he was assassinated.
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