AFP Asia Business

Hezbollah held the funeral Monday for its top military chief and other members of the militant group a day after Israel killed them in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.Haytham Ali Tabatabai is the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed by Israel since a November 2024 ceasefire sought to end more than a year of hostilities between the two sides.His assassination comes as Israel has escalated its attacks on Lebanon, with the United States increasing pressure on the Beirut government to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah.Israel’s military said Sunday it had “eliminated the terrorist Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s chief of general staff”.The group announced the deaths of Tabatabai and four other members in the attack.In Beirut’s southern suburbs, a densely populated area where Hezbollah holds sway, hundreds of supporters joined Monday’s funeral procession for Tabatabai and two of his companions.Hezbollah members in fatigues carried the coffins, draped in the group’s yellow flags, to the sound of religious chants, an AFP correspondent said.The crowd yelled slogans against Israel and America, while supporters carried portraits of the group’s leaders and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Hezbollah said Tabatabai assumed the role of military leader after the most recent war with Israel, which saw the group heavily weakened and senior commanders killed.Israel has carried out near daily strikes on Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the group from rearming.- ‘Very limited’ options -According to the agreement, Hezbollah was to withdraw north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border with Israel, and to have its military infrastructure there dismantled.Under a government-approved plan, Lebanon’s army is to finish disarming Hezbollah in the area by year end, before tackling the rest of the country.Hezbollah has rejected calls to disarm.After Tabatabai’s killing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would “not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its power” and urged Lebanon’s government to “fulfil its commitment to disarm Hezbollah”.A source close to the group told AFP on condition of anonymity there were “two opinions within the group — those who wish to respond to the assassination and those who want to refrain from doing so — but the leadership tends to adopt the utmost forms of diplomacy at the present stage”.Last December, Hezbollah lost a key supply route through Syria with the fall of longtime ruler and ally Bashar al-Assad.Washington is also demanding that Beirut cut off the group’s funding from Iran, which slammed Sunday’s killing as “cowardly”.Atlantic Council researcher Nicholas Blanford told AFP that “Hezbollah’s options are very limited”.”Its support base is clamouring for revenge but if Hezbollah responds directly… Israel will strike back very hard and no one in Lebanon will thank Hezbollah for that,” he said.- Hezbollah defiance -Sunday’s strike was the biggest blow to Hezbollah since the ceasefire “because of (Tabatabai’s) seniority and the fact that it demonstrates the Israelis can still locate and target senior officials despite whatever protective measures Hezbollah is undertaking” since the war, Blanford added.Senior Hezbollah official Ali Damush told the funeral that Tabatabai’s killing aimed “to frighten and weaken (Hezbollah) into retreating… surrendering, and submitting, but this goal will never be achieved”.Israel was “worried about Hezbollah’s possible response — and should remain worried”, he said, urging Lebanese authorities to “confront the aggression by all means… and reject the pressures that seek to push Lebanon to comply with American dictates and Israeli conditions”.Lebanon’s army says it is implementing its plan to disarm Hezbollah, but the United States and Israel have accused Lebanon’s authorities of stalling.Condemning the attack, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Sunday that “the only way to consolidate stability” was through “extending the authority of the state over all its territory with its own forces, and enabling the Lebanese army to carry out its duties”.A Lebanese military official told AFP last week that US and Israeli demands to fully disarm Hezbollah by December 31 were “impossible” considering personnel and equipment shortages, expressing concern at the risk of confrontations with local communities that support the group.

Pope Leo XIV embarks on his debut overseas trip Thursday, travelling to Turkey and Lebanon to promote Christian unity and urge peace efforts amid heightened tensions in the Middle East.The six-day trip is the first major international test for the US pope, who was elected head of the Catholic Church in May and whose understated style contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.In Turkey, Leo will celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, where the Creed — a foundational declaration of the Christian faith — was written.While the Chicago-born pontiff’s upcoming visit has so far garnered little attention in the predominantly Muslim country, where Christians represent only 0.2 percent of the 86 million inhabitants, it is eagerly awaited in Lebanon.Lebanon has long been held up as a model of religious coexistence.But since 2019, it has been ravaged by crises, including economic collapse which has caused widespread poverty, a devastating blast at Beirut port in 2020, and the recent war with Israel.”The Lebanese are tired,” said Vincent Gelot, director of the Lebanon and Syria office for l’Oeuvre d’Orient, a Catholic organisation that supports Christians in the Middle East.”They expect a frank word to the Lebanese elite, as well as strong and concrete actions,” he told AFP.- ‘A vicious cycle’ -Preparations are in full swing at the sites the pope will visit, with signs bearing his image and reading “Lebanon wants peace” hung along newly-restored roads.Lebanon’s ambassador to the Holy See, Fadi Assaf, said it was an “exceptional” visit which would “highlight the difficulties facing Lebanon”, which is hoping for a “political and economic breakthrough”.Gelot said the Lebanese are caught in “a vicious cycle of wars and suffering”, “dashed hopes” and “uncertainty about the future”, and they “know full well that (this visit) will not solve all their problems”.It is an opportunity however to highlight the role of private, often religious, organisations in ensuring access to healthcare and education — like the psychiatric hospital run by Franciscan nuns that Leo is set to visit, he said.Trip highlights include a meeting with the country’s youth, an open-air mass expected to draw 100,000 people, and a prayer at the site of the port explosion that killed over 220 people and caused vast damage to the Lebanese capital.Abdo Abou Kassem, the church’s media coordinator for the visit, said the pope also wishes to “reaffirm Lebanon’s role as… a model for both East and West” through an interreligious meeting in downtown Beirut.- Schisms -The visit to Turkey, a strategic crossroad between East and West, is also aimed at promoting the Church’s dialogue with Islam.Leo will meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday and visit the Blue Mosque in Istanbul on Saturday.But at the heart of the trip is the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which Leo was invited to attend by Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual head of Orthodox Christianity.Catholics recognise the universal authority of the pope as head of the Church, while Orthodox Christians are organised into churches that appoint their own heads.The 325 A.D. meeting in Nicaea predated the schisms that divided Christianity between East and West and the commemoration is an important moment to promote Christian unity.On the shores of Lake Iznik, the current name for Nicaea, the 70-year-old will join dignitaries from various Orthodox churches on Friday for a prayer which his predecessor, who died in April, had originally been set to attend.There will be one notable absence. With the war in Ukraine deepening a rift between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople, Russian Patriarch Kirill — a supporter of President Vladimir Putin — was not invited.The pope will be careful not to inflame tensions further by irritating Moscow, which fears the Vatican will strengthen Constantinople’s role as a privileged interlocutor and weaken its influence.