BEIRUT – Hezbollah announced it will hold mass funerals in south Lebanon on April 21 for 44 fighters killed during more than six weeks of war with Israel.
The burials come after Israel and Lebanon entered into a 10-day ceasefire on April 17 announced by US President Donald Trump.
Iran-backed Hezbollah has not given the total number of its fighters killed since Israel in March launched a massive wave of airstrikes and a ground invasion in Lebanon.
But on April 21 it said it will bury 29 fighters in the town of Kfar Sir, returning “a group of blessed souls to the soil of the south”.
It will also bury 15 fighters and one civilian in the village of Qlaileh, some of whom had been temporarily buried elsewhere until the ceasefire made a return south possible.
Shia Muslim rites provide for such temporary burials when circumstances prevent a proper funeral or the dead cannot be buried where they wished.
On April 20, AFP footage showed Hezbollah holding a funeral for another four fighters in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, with chants and gunfire heard from the crowd.
Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,387 people since the war broke out on March 2.
Among those killed are at least 274 women and 177 children, according to the health ministry, which does not classify people as combatants or civilians.
Israel said on April 15 that it had killed “more than 1,700“ Hezbollah fighters during the war, a number AFP cannot verify. AFP