For hours, Beirut’s Shia Muslim residents had been staring into their phones, waiting for news.
The Israelis were claiming to have killed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, but this was surely a lie.
It was typical of the Israelis and their nonsense, one woman scoffed. Nasrallah could hardly die. God would protect him. Others around her nodded in agreement.
“Israel has failed to kill him so they are trying to lure him into a trap,” said one man, who gave his name as Jaffar. “They want to force him to appear on television so they can try again to assassinate him.”
But then phones began to ping and a ripple of horror spread through Martyrs’ Square in central Beirut, where many Shia Muslims had fled Israel’s bombing of the city’s southern districts the night before.
The message they received was clear and unquestionable. Hezbollah was confirming what Israel had said all along: the man they revered as “sayyid” or “master” was indeed dead.
“His Eminence, the Master of Resistance, the righteous servant, has passed away to be with his Lord,” the message said. Nasrallah, it continued, was “a great martyr, a heroic, daring, brave, wise, insightful and faithful leader” who was “joining the caravan of the martyrs eternal”.
One woman burst into tears. A second sank to her knees, wailing.
“Ya Allah! Ya Allah!” she whimpered repeatedly: “Oh God! Oh God!”
Many in the square feared they had lost their homes as Israel stepped up its bombing campaign in southern Beirut, but this was somehow worse. They had lost the man they revered as their guiding star.
For those in the square, Nasrallah was a resistance hero who had liberated the Shia heartlands of southern Lebanon from Israeli military occupation in 2000 and then repelled Israeli forces when they tried to come back six years later.
They also regarded him as their saviour and champion, chosen by God to give Lebanon’s downtrodden and marginalised Shia minority a political voice, religious leadership and earthly comforts in the form of services and welfare.
Without him, they were bereft. As the women continued to weep, many Shia menfolk responded with anger, firing their rifles in the air across the city.
Already jittery after days of Israeli bombardment, the gunfire was too much for many Lebanese, still scarred by the memories of the sectarian civil war that raged between 1975 and 1990.
Many shuttered their shops and restaurants and retreated to the safety of home. By late afternoon, the streets of the capital were mostly deserted.
Fearful of how enraged Shias might act, Lebanese soldiers in armoured personnel carriers took up positions on a bridge separating the Shia district of Khandaa Al-Ghami from Christian Achrafieh.
Some spoke quietly of relief
Nasrallah, like Hezbollah itself, was a deeply polarising figure in Lebanon. While anger with Israel crosses sectarian lines, some Christians and Sunni Muslims also spoke quietly of their relief that Nasrallah was dead.
“It is a step in the right direction,” said Nasri, a shopkeeper in predominantly Christian eastern Beirut.
“What we are going through and will go through is painful and difficult but Nasrallah was a stumbling block to Lebanon’s progress. Without him we have a chance to be a nation again.”
For years, Hezbollah has exploited Lebanon’s political and economic decay to become the most powerful force in the country’s sectarian landscape.
Its militia is better armed, organised and funded than the army, while its political faction has, together with its allies, contributed to political paralysis in the country by preventing the appointment of a president or functioning government over the past two years.
By weakening the state, Hezbollah has strengthened its own position to the extent that few in Lebanon dare challenge it.
Yet that image of unassailability both within Lebanon and in the broader Middle East has taken a battering over the past fortnight and the movement has been laid even lower by Nasrallah’s death.
‘A moment of danger’
The humbling of Hezbollah is seen as a potential opportunity to normalise Lebanese politics –but as a moment of danger, too.
“If a wounded Hezbollah is no longer able to present itself as a leader of the resistance against Israel, its domestic position is also at risk and it may be tempted to use force as a leverage to shore up its waning power,” one MP said, asking not to be identified given the sensitivity of the topic.
A recalibration of Lebanese politics would be welcomed by many in the country’s Christian, Druze and Sunni Muslim communities, but Shias would undoubtedly fear that they would come out the losers from it.
Shia civilians, since they live in Hezbollah strongholds, have borne the brunt of Israel’s attacks on the movement’s positions.
Already nearly 200,000 had fled before Israel escalated its assault on southern Beirut on Friday.
More have fled the southern suburbs and are now sleeping rough in squares, parks and on beaches as the Lebanese government and aid agencies scramble to open up schools for them as temporary shelters.
“I have nowhere else to go,” said Maryam Tfaili, sitting on a mat with her two children in Martyrs’ Square. “Going home is out of the question because it is too dangerous. Israel has reduced us to beggars on the street.”
