Hezbollah leaders gathered for the funeral of a terror commander killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday.
The funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah’s head of military operations and acting commander of the Radwan Force, took place on Sunday after he was killed in an explosion that reportedly killed 37 people, including three children, and 15 other commanders.
Images from the procession, held in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh, showed hundreds of people in attendance, many in military uniforms and carrying the flag of the Iranian-backed military group. The funeral of Hezbollah member Mahmoud Hamad was taking place at the same time.
Supporters were seen carrying a picture of the slain leader, as well as Palestinian, Iranian and Lebanese flags, while a song about “becoming martyrs on the road to Jerusalem” played in the background.
An Israeli military statement said Aqil, who was in his early 60s, was killed along with other Radwan commanders during a meeting in an underground bunker.
The funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah’s head of military operations and acting commander of the Radwan Force, took place on Sunday
Hezbollah members salute the coffin of Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil during the funeral procession in Beirut’s southern suburb
The US greeted confirmation of the death of Ibrahim Aqil (pictured) by saying “no one sheds a tear” for the terror group’s second-in-command and leader of special forces in Radwan
Relatives gather during the funeral of Hezbollah leader Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed in an Israeli raid on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday.
Supporters held up Hezbollah flags and photos of Akil (left) and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (right) during Akil’s funeral procession
Aqil was initially injured in the beeper explosions on Tuesday and had been released from hospital earlier on Friday. However, he was killed in the strike on Friday.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies exploded simultaneously, killing 39 people and wounding thousands in Lebanon.
That was before an airstrike on Friday that killed Aqil and other Hezbollah members, along with 32 civilians.
Israel has taken sole responsibility for the airstrike, but earlier today Israeli President Isaac Herzog denied any involvement in the pager attacks.
In an interview with Sky News on Sunday morning, Herzog warned that Israel was in a “dangerous situation” and that there was “clearly a potential for a dramatic escalation.”
Israel had not commented on its involvement in the deadly attacks until this morning, with the president saying he “rejects in advance any connection to any source of operations.”
“There are many enemies of Hezbollah, quite a few these days. Hezbollah has strangled Lebanon, destroyed it, and caused chaos in Lebanon time and time again. We are here just to defend ourselves. That’s all we do,” he added.
Aqil, the career terrorist and confidant of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, had a £5 million bounty on his head for his role in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people.
He was also involved in the two bombings of US Marine barracks in Lebanon that same year, which killed 241 US servicemen and a total of 307 people.
Aqil was initially injured in the pager explosions on Tuesday and had been released from hospital earlier on Friday before being killed in the strike on Friday.
Naim Qassem (right), deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, and Mohammed Raad (center), head of the Hezbollah bloc in the Lebanese parliament, attend Aqil’s funeral
Qassem leads funeral prayers during the funeral of Aqil and Hezbollah member Mahmoud Hamad
A man makes a gesture during the funeral of Hezbollah leader Ibrahim Aqil
Relatives carry a coffin during the funeral of Hezbollah leader Ibrahim Aqil and Hezbollah member Mahmoud Hamad
Hezbollah members killed in Israeli strikes. Airstrike has “almost completely dismantled” the group’s military command structure, Israeli military claimed
US Middle East Czar Brett McGurk said the following at the Israeli-American Council conference in Washington: “Ibrahim Aqil was responsible for the embassy bombing in Beirut 40 years ago, so no one sheds a tear for him.”
At Aqil’s funeral, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, who was seated in the front row at the funeral, said the force had entered a new phase of its battle with Israel. He warned: “But as we grieve, so will you grieve.”
Qassem promised that the ongoing conflict would destroy Israel’s economy and told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would not achieve his goals.
The vice president said Hezbollah, which has lost several top military leaders in recent months, “has returned stronger and the front line will witness that.”
Qassem described Aqil as an operational commander who founded the Radwan unit. He stressed that he was a martyr for Jerusalem and Palestine.
He stressed that “Israel’s attack on Radwan’s leaders was aimed at paralyzing the resistance and fueling hostility in the area, in order to stop aid to Gaza and force the residents of the north to return.”
Hezbollah described him as one of its “great jihadist leaders.”
The funeral comes after Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire overnight, with the Israeli army announcing it is intensifying attacks on Hezbollah targets.
Some of the shells were intercepted and the fallen projectiles were found in Kiryat Bialik, Tsur Shalom and Moreshet, causing fires in the area, the Israeli military said.
In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog denied any Israeli involvement in this week’s attacks on the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, saying the country was not interested in a war with Lebanon.
Medical staff move a patient’s bed into an underground makeshift hospital in a parking lot at the Rambam Health Care Campus, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Haifa, Israel, September 22, 2024
The Israeli military said it struck about 290 targets on Saturday, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers. The country closed schools and banned gatherings in many northern areas of the country on Sunday morning.
Dozens of fighter jets began “extensive” strikes in southern Lebanon “after detecting that Hezbollah was preparing to fire into Israeli territory,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
Before the Israeli strikes began in the evening, the Israeli military had earlier said it had “closed on approximately 180 locations and thousands of… [rocket] launch barrels with impacts.
The Israeli army reported that more than 100 projectiles were fired from Lebanon early Sunday morning. Firefighters were working to extinguish the fires, which were caused by falling ammunition.
According to Israeli media, a number of buildings were hit directly or by falling rockets. The ambulance service reported that they treated a number of minor injuries. No serious casualties were reported.
Hezbollah said it struck Israel’s Ramat David air base with dozens of rockets in response to “repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon,” the group reported on its Telegram channel Sunday morning.