Hassan Nasrallah in 2003. (Credit: Ramzi Haidar/AFP)
BEIRUT — Hezbollah has officially announced the death of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an announcement released around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon.
The long-time party leader, known as an unparalleled strategist and charismatic speaker, was assassinated by Israel on Friday evening in a strike that Israeli officials told the New York Times included the dropping of more than 80 bombs over a period of several minutes on the southeastern quarter of the Haret Hreik neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs.
The air raid sent tremors through the capital, covered the area in a thick black smoke, and leveled six residential buildings to the ground. Witnesses at the site of the strike said fissures had appeared in the ground.
According to the same NYT report, citing three senior Israeli officials, Israeli leaders were aware of Nasrallah’s whereabouts for months before deciding carry out the strike against him on Friday. The decision to go forward with the assassination, which took place around 6:30 p.m., was because they believed there was only a short window of opportunity before he would disappear to a different location, the officials said.
Quotes from Hezbollah's statement
"His Eminence, the Master of Resistance, the righteous slave, moved to his Lord's side as a great martyr, a leader, a hero, a brave, courageous, wise, clairvoyant, and a believer, joining the caravan of martyrs of Karbala, the eternal light in the divine march of faith in the footsteps of the prophets and the martyred imams," Hezbollah's statements opens.
"We console the Lord of the Age and the Time, the Guardian of the Muslims, Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the great authorities, the mujahideen, the believers, the resistance nation, our patient and struggling Lebanese people, the entire Islamic nation and all the free and oppressed in the world, and his honorable and patient family," the statement continues, "and we congratulate His Eminence the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, on receiving the highest divine honors, the Order of Imam Hussein, peace be upon him, achieving his highest wishes and the highest ranks of faith and pure belief, as a martyr on the path of Jerusalem and Palestine, and we condole and congratulate his companions who joined his pure and holy procession following the treacherous Zionist raid on the southern suburbs."
"The Hezbollah leadership pledges to continue its jihad in the face of the enemy, in support of Gaza and Palestine, and in defense of Lebanon and its steadfast and honorable people."
“Our leader is still among us with his thought, spirit and sacred approach."
On the streets
"Men are crying and women are screaming," says Sally Khoury, a volunteer at the Rene Mawad Public School currently hosting displaced southerners. "It feels like the day of judgement."
Gunshots could be heard in various neighborhoods in Beirut as people fired into the air, a symbol of mourning or celebration often practiced during funeral and weddings.
In Hamra, men and women are walking down the streets, crying. The air is tense. "Let us see what’s going to happen now” a man screams from inside a coffee shop.
A man is hunched against a wall, leaning on it for support as he wails. Many are glued to their phones. The uncertainty weighs heavy.
"If the Sayyed is dead, that's it. It's done," a man with tears in his eyes says to the group of people he has gathered with.
