BEIRUT, Lebanon: As Hezbollah leaders threatened Israel with crushing retaliation for killing their top commander, thousands flocked to Beirut for a dance extravaganza in a stark illustration of Lebanon's deep divisions.
In the capital's southern suburbs – a Hezbollah stronghold – tens of thousands of black-clad women and men in military uniform joined Thursday's funeral procession for slain commander Fuad Shukr.
Across the waterfront city of Beirut, nearly 8,000 people attended a spectacular dance show that night by the Mayyas troupe that won the 2022 “America's Got Talent” television competition.
“I'm sorry that people are dying in southern Lebanon and Gaza, but resistance is not just about carrying a gun and fighting,” said 45-year-old Olga Farhat.
– Joy, art and celebrating life is also a form of resistance, says the human rights activist to AFP.
Fireworks opened the dance show, hours after Hezbollah buried Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs on Tuesday.
The show, titled “Qumi” – rise up in Arabic – was a tribute to the Lebanese capital, which has endured decades of conflict, upheaval and a year-long economic crisis.
“There is a split in the country between those who don't care about war and feel that… Hezbollah wants to impose its collective identity on them, while the other group is fighting,” Farhat said.
“I understand both points of view, but we are tired of wars and crises, we want to enjoy life.”
In the southern suburbs, thousands of Hezbollah supporters chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Across the city, dozens of Mayyas dancers performed a moving tribute to war-torn southern Lebanon, from where Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since the Gaza war began on October 7.
“I grew up during Lebanon's (1975-1990) civil war and I was brought up to believe in the Palestinian cause,” Farhat said.
“But today I say 'Lebanon first'.”
The raid that killed Shukr and an Iranian military adviser also claimed the lives of three women and two young siblings, authorities said.
In a video clip circulating online, their grieving mother said their lives were a “sacrifice for you, Sayyed (Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah).”
Hussein Nasreddine, 36, spoke from the southern suburbs: “We love life like everyone else… but if Israel drags us into war, it is our duty to die as martyrs.”
The cross-border violence since October has killed at least 542 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also 114 civilians, according to a report by AFP.
On the Israeli side, the army reports 47 dead, including in the annexed Golan Heights.
In June, the head of the Hezbollah bloc in the Lebanese parliament, Mohammad Raad, who lost a son in the border clashes, lamented Lebanese “who want to go to nightclubs… beaches and enjoy their lives” as war rages in June. the south.
This week, independent lawmaker Mark Daou outraged Hezbollah supporters by posting a photograph of Thursday night's show with the comment: “The strongest response to Israel is the culture of life and beauty.”
Daou, who was elected after mass protests against the political leadership responsible for the country's descent into economic crisis, told AFP he refused to “reduce Lebanon to a battlefield.”
Many politicians, particularly from Lebanon's Christian community, have criticized Hezbollah for risking war with Israel.
Peacebuilding expert Sonia Nakad said “the greater the tragedy, the greater the division” in Lebanon.
In Lebanon, power is shared along sectarian lines, with communities so divided over the country's past that events after 1943 are missing from official history books.
Each party “wants the other to be an exact copy of them in order to coexist, while they are opposites in everything,” she said.
“The Lebanese have not yet refrained from using violence against each other, no matter how big their differences,” she said.
Foreign airlines have suspended or canceled flights to Beirut, but many expatriate Lebanese are still pouring in, although some have cut short their holidays.
Rabab Abu Hamdan said she planned to go back to the Gulf after feeling “very stressed the last few days”.
“Despite the difficult circumstances, Lebanon is still the best holiday destination,” she said.
