The head of Lebanon’s Hizbollah said yesterday that his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, would be laid to rest on February 23, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli air attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Nasrallah, who had served as Hizbollah’s secretary general for more than 30 years, was killed on September 27 as Israel ramped up its air attacks on Hizbollah targets and just days before Israeli troops began ground incursions into southern Lebanon.
His successor Naim Qassem said in a televised address yesterday that Nasrallah was killed ‘at a time when circumstances were difficult,’ forcing the group to conduct a temporary burial for him according to religious tradition.
Qassem said the group had now decided to hold ‘a grand funeral procession with a large public presence’.
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