Hezbollah's defiance: Nasrallah’s picture projected onto a tourist site one year after his death
Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the killing of the historic leader of the "Party of God" in an Israeli raid. Defying the prime minister and government directives, the Shia movement projected his face onto the Raouche Rock in front of thousands of supporters. A cabinet crisis is looming while Hezbollah might enjoy again impunity.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – The authority of the state, particularly that of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, was seriously defied Thursday evening by Hezbollah, which violated an administrative ban by projecting pictures of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and his successor, Hashem Safieddine, onto Raouche (Pigeon) Rock, a major tourist attraction on Beirut's Corniche.
The projections were the highlight of the first annual commemoration of the assassination of the two men, buried alive in their underground headquarters by Israeli air raids at the height of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in the fall of 2024.
Tens of thousands of supporters of the Shia movement participated. However, the Amal movement disassociated itself from the event without condemning it. Two requests to allow prominent figures to fly in from Iran to participate in Thursday's commemoration were denied.
Mr Salam's humiliation was deliberate. From the scene of the demonstration, which brought together tens of thousands of supporters, Ali Berro, a journalist for the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar television station, posted a video in which he addressed the PM with humiliating remarks. Wafiq Safa, the eminence grise of the pro-Iranian party's secretary general, stood at his side, laughing.
“Nawaf, the haji (Wafiq Safa) greets you and says, 'We're going to turn it on, Nawaf, and we're going to turn you off’,” the journalist can be heard saying, adding, once the rock was illuminated: "And there you have it, Nawaf, we illuminated it, despite you and despite your master Yazid,” a reference to the Saudi emissary to Lebanon, Emir Yazid bin Farhan.
“Even after his martyrdom, his index finger shattered your head, broke your neck, and shattered your resolve,” he said, referring to Hassan Nasrallah. In the crowd, a woman addressed Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun: "Guard your rock, you'll soon hide there like cockroaches."
Cabinet crisis
The event triggered a cabinet crisis in Lebanon, with the prime minister cancelling all his appointments on Friday. On X, Salam slammed “a flagrant violation of the authorisation granted by the city's governor.”
“Consequently, I have contacted the ministers of Interior, Justice, and Defence to take appropriate action, including arresting those responsible and bringing them to justice to be punished in accordance with applicable laws," he added.
The prime minister also stressed that "this reprehensible behaviour will not deter us from our decision to rebuild a state based on law and institutions; on the contrary, it strengthens our resolve to fulfil this national duty.”
A picture of the speaker of the parliament, as well as that of two former prime ministers, Saad Hariri and his father, Rafik Hariri, standing with Hassan Nasrallah, was also projected, angering Future Movement supporters, who viewed it as a “provocation.”
Rafic Hariri was killed in Beirut on 14 February 2005, during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, in a suicide van bombing. In 2022, the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) sentenced two Hezbollah members in absentia to life imprisonment for the attack.
Return of impunity?
Despite the determination displayed by government officials, observers are concerned that this suggests a "return to pre-war impunity" for Hezbollah and raises fears that the consensus on collecting Hezbollah's weapons, which excludes heavy-handed measures, will serve the party to rebuild its forces.
Certainly, the fall of the Assad dictatorship in Syria has deprived it of weapons supplies by land, but it is clear that it continues to pay its fighters and that its network of institutions is still operating in Lebanon, according to witnesses and experts cited by AFP.
US envoy Tom Barrack, who has criticised the slow pace of Hezbollah's disarmament, stated Monday that the group was receiving "US$ 60 million per month," without specifying his source.
The sum could even be higher, some estimate, since several Hezbollah members and supporters interviewed by AFP, on condition of anonymity, claimed they continued to receive monthly cash payments.
Hezbollah fighters receive between US$ 500 and US$ 700 per month, at a time when the minimum wage in Lebanon is US$ 300.
In July, the Central Bank banned all transactions with the Al-Qard al-Hassan financial company, which is linked to Hezbollah and sanctioned by the United States. But the institution, whose offices were bombed by Israel, continues to operate according to reports. Popular since the collapse of the banking sector in 2019, it grants loans in dollars against gold deposits.
Hezbollah's economy relies heavily on cash – businesses, cryptocurrencies, bank transfers, and charitable funds – sometimes transported by commercial flights, according to experts. Lebanon indefinitely suspended flights from Iran in February after threats from Israel.
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