Hezbollah held the funeral Monday for its top military chief and other members of the militant group a day after Israel killed them in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Haytham Ali Tabatabai is the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since a November 2024 ceasefire sought to end more than a year of hostilities between the two sides.
His assassination comes as Israel has escalated its attacks on Lebanon, with the United States increasing pressure on the Beirut government to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Israel’s military said Sunday it had “eliminated the terrorist Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s chief of general staff”.
The group announced the deaths of Tabatabai and four other members in the attack.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, a densely populated area where Hezbollah holds sway, hundreds of supporters joined Monday’s funeral procession for Tabatabai and two of his companions.
Hezbollah members in fatigues carried the coffins, draped in the group’s yellow flags, to the sound of religious chants, an AFP correspondent said.
The crowd yelled slogans against Israel and America, while supporters carried portraits of the group’s leaders and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Hezbollah said Tabatabai assumed the role of military leader after the most recent war with Israel, which saw the group heavily weakened and senior commanders killed.
Israel has carried out near daily strikes on Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the group from rearming.
– ‘Very limited’ options –
According to the agreement, Hezbollah was to withdraw north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border with Israel, and to have its military infrastructure there dismantled.
Under a government-approved plan, Lebanon’s army is to finish disarming Hezbollah in the area by year end, before tackling the rest of the country.
Hezbollah has rejected calls to disarm.
After Tabatabai’s killing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would “not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its power” and urged Lebanon’s government to “fulfil its commitment to disarm Hezbollah”.
A source close to the group told AFP on condition of anonymity there were “two opinions within the group — those who wish to respond to the assassination and those who want to refrain from doing so — but the leadership tends to adopt the utmost forms of diplomacy at the present stage”.
Last December, Hezbollah lost a key supply route through Syria with the fall of longtime ruler and ally Bashar al-Assad.
Washington is also demanding that Beirut cut off the group’s funding from Iran, which slammed Sunday’s killing as “cowardly”.
Atlantic Council researcher Nicholas Blanford told AFP that “Hezbollah’s options are very limited”.
“Its support base is clamouring for revenge but if Hezbollah responds directly… Israel will strike back very hard and no one in Lebanon will thank Hezbollah for that,” he said.
– Hezbollah defiance –
Sunday’s strike was the biggest blow to Hezbollah since the ceasefire “because of (Tabatabai’s) seniority and the fact that it demonstrates the Israelis can still locate and target senior officials despite whatever protective measures Hezbollah is undertaking” since the war, Blanford added.
Senior Hezbollah official Ali Damush told the funeral that Tabatabai’s killing aimed “to frighten and weaken (Hezbollah) into retreating… surrendering, and submitting, but this goal will never be achieved”.
Israel was “worried about Hezbollah’s possible response — and should remain worried”, he said, urging Lebanese authorities to “confront the aggression by all means… and reject the pressures that seek to push Lebanon to comply with American dictates and Israeli conditions”.
Lebanon’s army says it is implementing its plan to disarm Hezbollah, but the United States and Israel have accused Lebanon’s authorities of stalling.
Condemning the attack, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Sunday that “the only way to consolidate stability” was through “extending the authority of the state over all its territory with its own forces, and enabling the Lebanese army to carry out its duties”.
A Lebanese military official told AFP last week that US and Israeli demands to fully disarm Hezbollah by December 31 were “impossible” considering personnel and equipment shortages, expressing concern at the risk of confrontations with local communities that support the group.
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© Agence France-Presse
