With flowers, tears and defiance, thousands bury nearly 100 Lebanese in
mass funeral
[March 01, 2025]
By SARAH EL DEEB and BASSEM MROUE
AITAROUN, Lebanon (AP) — Thousands of mourners in southern Lebanon on
Friday attended a funeral for nearly 100 Lebanese killed last year
during the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
It was the largest mass burial ceremony in Lebanon since the
U.S.-brokered ceasefire three months ago. It followed last week’s burial
of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s former leader, and his top aide in
Beirut attended by tens of thousands.
The emotional ceremony was organized to mark the return of the bodies of
those killed to their hometown of Aitaroun, one of the largest villages
in southern Lebanon, which was devastated during the war. The 95 bodies
had been temporarily buried elsewhere and were exhumed for the reburial.
Israeli forces left the border village in early February, allowing
thousands of residents to return.
The mourners, some visiting from nearby villages, threw flowers and
sprayed rose water on the trucks carrying the coffins of the 95 killed
in the war. Five others killed were still missing and organizers said
they are still working to find and identify their remains.
At least 51 reburied in the village cemetery were Hezbollah fighters
killed in Aitaroun or in other southern villages. Relatives raised
posters of those killed, some as young as 18, parading them through the
streets of Aitaroun, lined with destroyed buildings and damaged fruit
orchards. The killed also included five children, 16 women and 10 civil
defense rescuers.
“My heart is broken,” said Fatima Hejazi, 36, who came to rebury her
younger brother Ali, 29. “Look at all these young men. It is a big loss.
The country lost its young men. But thankfully they were killed on the
path of resistance, and they continued until the end and didn’t
surrender.”
Hezbollah is believed to have lost hundreds of fighters since Israel
escalated its war with the Lebanese militant group in late September.
The exact number of fighters killed has not yet been declared by the
group, which had said until September that more than 500 fighters were
killed in a year of low-simmering war.
Prime minister calls for full Israeli withdrawal
Separately on Friday, Lebanon’s new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, toured
areas near the border with Israel that suffered wide destruction during
the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war. He called for a full Israeli
withdrawal and promised residents of border villages a safe return to
their homes and reconstruction.
“We promise you a safe return to your homes as soon as possible,” Salam
said, speaking in the southern port city of Tyre while meeting residents
of the border village of Dheira.
Salam didn't attend the mass funeral in Aitaroun.
His visit came only two days after his government won a vote of
confidence in parliament. Members of Hezbollah’s bloc voted in favor of
the new administration’s policy statement that said only the national
army has the right to defend the country in case of war. The statement
was a blow to the militant arm of the group that has kept its weapons
for decades saying it is necessary to defend Lebanon against Israel.
Israel withdrew its troops from much of the border area earlier this
month, but left five outposts inside Lebanon in what Lebanese officials
called a violation of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that came into effect
on Nov. 27.
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Mourners bury the bodies of nearly 100 people in the largest mass
funeral of Lebanese killed during the war between Israel and
Hezbollah, in the southern village of Aitaroun, Lebanon, Friday,
Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Salam said his government is garnering Arab and international
support “to force the enemy to withdraw from our occupied lands and
the so-called five points.”
Official burials
In the Aitaroun mass funeral, Hezbollah and many of its supporters
struck a defiant tone.
“Be prepared to welcome the heroes,” one of the organizers shouted
from the podium, rousing the crowd to greet the coffins carried on
four trucks as they drove into the village. A former
Hezbollah-allied minister, Ibrahim Bairam, told the crowd that the
militant group has suffered but is not down. The group is backing
the government, he said, but called on it to act independently.
Among the dead was a 10-month-old girl killed in an Oct. 14 Israeli
airstrike on a residential building that killed 23 people, all of
them displaced from Aitaroun.
At least 32 of those reburied Friday were killed in two of the
deadliest Israeli attacks in Ain el-Delb in southern Lebanon and
Aito, in the country’s Christian heartland. They had all been
displaced from Aitaroun.
The ceremony was attended by Iranian, Iraqi and Yemeni delegations.
Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023,
one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that
sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and
airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an
escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 1
million were displaced. Over 100,000 have not yet been able to
return home. On the Israeli side, dozens of people were killed and
some 60,000 are displaced.
Charges over attack on UNIFIL
During his tour, Salam also visited the southern cities of Marjayoun
and Nabatiyeh and praised the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as
UNIFIL, that has been deployed along the Lebanon-Israel border since
1978.
In mid-February, UNIFIL’s outgoing deputy commander was injured when
protesters attacked a convoy taking peacekeepers to the Beirut
airport.
On Friday, three judicial officials told The Associated Press that
26 people have been charged in the attack on UNIFIL, with only five
in detention. The suspects were charged with terrorism, undermining
state authority, robbery and forming a gang to carry out evil acts,
the judicial officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line
with regulations.
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