The funeral for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will be held on February 23, the group’s current chief said on Sunday, months after his predecessor died in an Israeli air strike.
Nasrallah was killed in a huge Israeli air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27, as Israel scaled up its campaign against the Iran-backed group following almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
After decades at the helm of the group once seen as invincible, the killing of the charismatic leader sent shockwaves across Lebanon and the wider region.
“After security conditions prevented holding a funeral” during two months of all-out war that ended on November 27, Hezbollah has decided to hold “on February 23 a grand… public funeral” for Nasrallah, Naim Qassem said in a televised speech.
“We hope that it will be a grand funeral procession befitting this great personality,” he said.
Qassem also confirmed for the first time that leading official Hashem Safieddine had been chosen to succeed Nasrallah before he too was killed in an Israeli raid in October.
Safieddine will be buried “as Secretary-General” or leader of Hezbollah, because “we had… elected His Eminence Sayyed Hashem as Secretary-General… but he was martyred on October 3, a day or two before the announcement”, Qassem said.
The group will hold Safieddine’s funeral on the same day as Nasrallah’s.
