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<div class="gmail-inner-article-top"><h1 class="gmail-">Massive crowd bids farewell to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah</h1><p class="gmail-">About
1.4 million people took part in the funeral procession for the Lebanese
resistance icon, while Israeli jets carried out repeated overflights to
intimidate mourners</p><div class="gmail-another-name"><p><a href="https://thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9" style="color:rgb(164,4,4)">News Desk</a></p></div><div class="gmail-another-name" style="margin-top:16px"><p><span style="color:rgb(84,88,94)">FEB 23, 2025 - </span><font size="1"><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/massive-crowd-bids-farewell-to-hezbollah-leader-hassan-nasrallah">https://thecradle.co/articles/massive-crowd-bids-farewell-to-hezbollah-leader-hassan-nasrallah</a></font></p></div></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-img"><img src="https://thecradle-main.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/public/articles/6729c36c-f1f7-11ef-8e4d-00163e02c055.jpeg" alt="" width="462" height="260" style="margin-right: 0px;"><span>(Photo Credit: AP)</span></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-content"><div class="gmail-row"><div class="gmail-col-md-8 gmail-col-sm-7"><div class="gmail-article-content"><span><p>Hundreds
of thousands gathered in the Lebanese capital on 23 February to take
part in the funeral of the late Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan
Nasrallah, and his <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm242380133o">short-lived</a> successor, Hashem Safieddine.</p><p>Mourners
started to gather at the Camille Chamoun Sports City stadium in Beirut
from the early hours of Sunday. Local estimates suggest that around 1.4
million people, including visitors from nearly 80 nations, united to pay
their respects to the Lebanese resistance leaders killed by Israel.</p><div class="gmail-twitter-tweet gmail-twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display:flex;max-width:550px;width:100%;margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px"></div> <p>“Today,
we say farewell to an exceptional, historical leader, a national, Arab,
and Islamic figure who has become a symbol of freedom for oppressed
people worldwide,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem told the sea
of people, adding that “Today's crowd is an expression of loyalty that
is unparalleled in Lebanon's history.”</p><p>“Sayyed Hassan’s unwavering
commitment to the resistance focused on Palestine and Jerusalem, and he
played a crucial role in reviving this cause, sacrificing his life at
the forefront … We will honor his legacy, continue on this path, and
uphold his will,” Qassem stressed.</p><p>The Hezbollah leader also said
Israel “can no longer maintain its occupation and aggression,”
highlighting that the resistance is “entering a new phase, one that
demands new tools, strategies, and approaches.”</p><p>As Nasrallah and
Safieddine's remains entered the stadium, Israeli warplanes flew at low
altitude over Beirut, prompting defiant chants of “At your service,
Nasrallah” and “Death to Israel.”</p><div class="gmail-twitter-tweet gmail-twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display:flex;max-width:550px;width:100%;margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px"></div> <p>“Our
warplanes flying over Nasrallah's funeral send a message that those who
threaten to destroy us are writing their own end,” Israeli Defense
Minister Israel Katz told Hebrew media.</p><p>Israeli warplanes also continued to drop bombs in south and eastern Lebanon.</p><div class="gmail-twitter-tweet gmail-twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display:flex;max-width:550px;width:100%;margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px"></div> <p>Despite
the Israeli provocations, Nasrallah's funeral concluded without
incident. After the ceremony, crowds started moving behind the two
coffins toward their burial site.</p><p>Officials from around West Asia,
including Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign
Minister Abbas Araghchi, participated in Sunday's events.</p><p>“Today's
solemn funeral will affirm to the entire world that the Resistance and
Hezbollah are alive, that this people remain loyal to their values, and
that the path of Resistance will continue,” Araghchi said upon his
arrival to Beirut earlier in the day.</p><p>“Let the enemy be aware that
resistance against usurpation, oppression, and arrogance will never end
and will continue until the ultimate goal is reached by the will of
God,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a statement on Sunday,
describing Nasrallah as the leading commander of the resistance in the
region, saying he is now at the “height of honor.”</p><p>Palestinian
resistance movement Hamas also issued a statement on the occasion of
Nasrallah's funeral, recalling "the heroic and honorable positions of
the martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, his firm and principled adoption of
the Palestinian cause, and his insistence on forming a support front
with our people in the Gaza Strip."</p><p>"We affirm that the crimes of
the Zionist occupation and its cowardly assassinations of resistance
leaders in Palestine, Lebanon, and everywhere will not halt our blessed
path but will only strengthen our determination to continue on the path
of our martyred leaders," the statement reads.</p><p>Nasrallah was killed on 27 September in an <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/widespread-destruction-in-beirut-after-israeli-carpet-bombing-campaign">Israeli airstrike</a>
as he met Hezbollah commanders in a bunker in Beirut's southern
suburbs. Israeli warplanes dropped over 80 tons of US-provided
bunker-buster bombs on the site, causing an enormous explosion that was
heard across the Lebanese capital.</p><p style="margin-left:0px">Born
in 1960 to a Shia Muslim family in a poor area of east Beirut, Nasrallah
briefly joined the Amal Movement as a young man, inspired by its leader
Sayyed Musa Sadr.</p><p style="margin-left:0px">In late 1976,
Nasrallah left for Najaf, Iraq, to study at the city’s religious
seminary. There, he met Lebanese scholar Abbas Mussawi. After the 1978
Baathist crackdown on Shia Muslims, Nasrallah and Mussawi returned to
Lebanon, where he continued his studies.</p><p style="margin-left:0px">Nasrallah
became head of Hezbollah’s executive council and a member of its shura
council in 1985. Seven years later, Mussawi, serving as Hezbollah’s
secretary general, was assassinated along with his wife and child in an
Israeli airstrike.</p><p style="margin-left:0px">According to Iranian
General Hossein Hamedani, following the assassination of Quds Force
commander Qassem Soleimani by the US in 2020, Tehran tasked Nasrallah
with uniting its armed allies in Iraq. He also supervised the overall
policy for the Resistance Axis during the US-backed Syrian war.</p><p style="margin-left:0px">“I
say clearly, whatever the sacrifices, whatever the consequences,
whatever the possibilities, whatever the horizon the region goes
towards, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting and standing
by the people in Gaza, the people of the West Bank, and the oppressed
in that sacred land," Nasrallah said in his final public speech before
his death.</p></span></div></div></div></div>
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