Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah is preparing for a massive turnout for the funeral on Sunday of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, an opportunity for a show of strength by the Iran-backed group after a bruising war with Israel.<\/p>\n
Nasrallah\u2019s death nearly five months ago in a huge Israeli strike on Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs left Hezbollah supporters in disbelief and sent shockwaves across Lebanon and the region.<\/p>\n
The country will stop for Sunday\u2019s funeral, to be held at 1pm at the Camille Chamoun sports stadium on the capital\u2019s outskirts.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah has announced strict security measures and urged security forces to help manage crowds that are expected to number in the tens of thousands, with people pouring in from Hezbollah strongholds across the country, as well as from abroad.<\/p>\n
Hassan Wehbe, 60, an electrician in Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs, said the funeral would be \u201ca historic day\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be huge participation. Israel will see that we are not afraid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah has invited senior Lebanese officials including the president.<\/p>\n
Its key foreign backer Iran has said it will participate \u201cat a high level\u201d, without specifying who will attend.<\/p>\n
Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based Hezbollah expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said it was important for Hezbollah \u201cto be able to demonstrate that they haven\u2019t been cowed \u2014 that they are still a popular force\u201d within the Shiite community.<\/p>\n
The funeral \u201cis going to be exactly the event for that\u201d, he told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u2018Moral duty\u2019
\nThe ceremony is expected to last around an hour, including a speech by current leader Naim Qassem, who has called for a huge turnout.<\/p>\n
A procession will follow to Nasrallah\u2019s burial site near the airport road, now lined with yellow Hezbollah flags and images of him and other slain Hezbollah figures.<\/p>\n
Civil aviation authorities said Beirut airport will close exceptionally and flights will be suspended from midday until 4pm.<\/p>\n
The US embassy has urged Americans to avoid the area.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah was battered by more than a year of hostilities with Israel that culminated in two months of full-blown war before a ceasefire took effect on November 27.<\/p>\n
After Nasrallah was killed on September 27, the group delayed his funeral due to security concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah is preparing for a massive turnout for the funeral on Sunday of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, an opportunity for a show of strength by the Iran-backed group after a bruising war with Israel. Nasrallah\u2019s death nearly five months ago in a huge Israeli strike on Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs left Hezbollah supporters in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5779,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions\/5779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}