Hundreds of thousands of mourners gathered in the capital Beirut on Sunday for the funeral of former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The state news agency NNA said the mass funeral for Nasrallah and senior Hezbollah member Hashem Safieddine started at the Camille Chamoun Sports City amid tight security.
Nasrallah was assassinated in Israeli airstrikes in Beirut on Sept. 27, 2024. Safieddine was killed in a similar airstrike on Oct. 3.
Addressing the ceremony, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem accused Israel of failing to adhere to a ceasefire agreement in southern Lebanon, asserting that his group remained committed to the truce.
“We agreed to the enemy’s request for a ceasefire because we had no interest in prolonging the fighting without a political or military objective,” said Qassem.
He emphasised that Hezbollah had upheld the agreement while Israel had failed to abide by it.
“With the deadline for Israel’s withdrawal now passed, the responsibility falls on the Lebanese state,” he said.
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Qassem also declared that Hezbollah remains strong and fully prepared, warning that Israel must withdraw from the areas it still occupies in southern Lebanon.
The Hezbollah leader also accused Israel of planning a war against Lebanon “regardless of Hamas’ Oct. 7 operation.”
He stated that neither Israel nor the U.S. would succeed in pressuring Lebanese officials into submission.
“What they failed to achieve through war, they will not achieve through politics,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes on several towns in eastern and southern Lebanon today amid a mass funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and despite an ongoing ceasefire.
The Israeli attacks targeted the towns of Zrariyeh, Zibqin, Al-Qlaiaah, Jannata, Deir Qanoun Al Naher, and Maaroub in southern Lebanon, sources said.
The state news agency NNA said a Syrian girl was injured near Al-Qlaiaah and was transferred to a hospital for medical attention.
The broadcaster said an airstrike was also reported in the Brisa area in eastern Lebanon, but no casualties were reported.
The Israeli public broadcaster KAN also reported that Israeli drones flew over the Lebanese capital Beirut. Lebanese sources, however, denied the claim, saying that the Lebanese military, not Israel, operated the drones.
The Israeli army confirmed the strikes, claiming that they targeted Hezbollah “military sites that contained rocket munitions and other weapons in Baalbek and several other locations in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah activity was detected.”
A military statement claimed that several rocket platforms were destroyed in the attacks, which coincided with the participation of thousands of mourners in the funeral of Nasrallah and senior Hezbollah leader Hashem Safieddine in Beirut’s Camille Chamoun Sports City.
The Israeli army has continued to violate the Nov. 27 ceasefire agreement with over 1,000 breaches reported by Lebanese authorities, including the death of at least 79 people and injury of 276 others.
The ceasefire agreement ended months of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah that escalated into a full-scale conflict in September.
Under the ceasefire deal, Israel was supposed to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon by Jan. 26, but the deadline was extended to Feb. 18 after Israel refused to comply.
The Israeli army withdrew from southern Lebanese towns last week but maintained a military presence at five border outposts.
