Traffic moves beneath a banner depicting the slain leader of the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah (C) and his deputy Hashem Safieddine (C-R) as well as that of slain Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on Beirut Airport Road, in Beirut. AFP
Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather in Beirut to bid farewell to the Lebanese group’s chief.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on 27 September last year, marking the start of an all-out Israeli escalation on Lebanon after roughly a year of lower-level conflict. The strike, which targeted south Beirut, also killed Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior commander in Iran’s Quds Force—the foreign operations arm of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The exchanges escalated into more than two months of full-scale war before a ceasefire came into effect in November last year.
Ghalibaf, “along with a number of parliamentarians and state officials, will leave on Sunday for Lebanon to attend Nasrallah’s funeral,” member of parliament Alireza Salimi told the official IRNA news agency on Saturday.
On Friday evening, the Fars news agency reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would also attend the ceremony.
Nasrallah led Hezbollah for more than three decades and was a major figure in Middle Eastern politics.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
Short link: