Hundreds of thousands attend funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

Hundreds of thousands of people packed into a stadium in Beirut on Sunday to attend the funeral of Hezbollah’s former leader, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital.

Hassan Nasrallah was killed when Israel’s air force dropped more than 80 bombs on the militant group’s main operations room.

His death was a major blow for the Iran-backed group that he had transformed into a potent force in the Middle East.

Nasrallah was the group’s leader for more than 30 years and one of its founders.

He enjoyed wide influence among Iran-backed groups in the region and was widely respected in the so-called Iran-led axis of resistance that included Iraqi, Yemeni and Palestinian factions.

A Lebanese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, estimated the crowd size at 450,000. Others gave higher estimates. The pro-Hezbollah pan-Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen reported a figure of 1.4 million.

Sahar al-Attar, a mourner who travelled from Lebanon’s Bekaa valley for the funeral, said she still “cannot believe what happened”.

“We would have come even under bullets” to attend Nasrallah’s burial, she said. “It is an indescribable feeling.”

Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were among the officials who arrived at the Lebanese capital’s main sports stadium.

Lebanon’s parliament speaker and representatives of the president and prime minister were also in attendance.

Senior Hezbollah official Ali Daamoush told reporters on Saturday that about 800 personalities from 65 countries would be attending the funeral in addition to thousands of individuals and activists from around the world.

Hezbollah security members with their dogs in Beirut’s City Sportive stadium (Hussein Malla/AP)

“Come from every home, village and city so that we tell the enemy that this resistance will stay and is ready in the field,” Daamoush said, referring to Israel.

Nasrallah shared the funeral with his cousin and successor, Hashem Safieddine, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb a few days later.

Nasrallah was laid to rest on Sunday in Beirut after the funeral procession, while Safieddine will be buried in his hometown in southern Lebanon. Both had temporarily been buried in secret locations.

As the coffins were paraded before the huge crowd, men riding on the platforms with them tossed flowers. Some in the crowd threw clothing articles in the hope they would come in contact with the coffins, believing it would bless them.

Outside of the stadium, giant screens were placed along the road leading to the airport, titling the funeral: “We are committed to the covenant.”

Hezbollah called on its supporters to attend the funeral in large numbers in what appears to be a move to show that the group remains powerful after suffering major blows during a 14-month war with Israel that left many of its senior political and military officials dead.

Another blow for Hezbollah was the fall in early December of the Assad family’s five-decade rule in Syria, which was a strong ally of the Lebanese group and a main route for the flow of weapons and money from Iran.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the war with Israel on November 27, Hezbollah is not supposed to have an armed presence along the border with Israel.

Thousands have arrived for the funeral (Osamah Abdulrahman/AP)

Hezbollah’s rivals have been calling on the group to lay down its weapons all over Lebanon and become a political faction.

Hours before the funeral was to start, the Israeli military launched a series of strikes in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli army said in a statement that it had “conducted a precise intelligence-based strike on a military site containing rocket launchers and weapons in Lebanese territory