Mass funerals for Hezbollah fighters and civilians took place across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, as people used a pause in fighting between Hezbollah and Israel to return to their villages and bury relatives at their local cemeteries.
In Qlaileh, a village about nine miles from the Lebanese-Israeli border, hundreds of families gathered for the funeral of 16 Hezbollah fighters and four civilians on Tuesday afternoon.
As mourners carried their coffins through the village square and to the cemetery, many women carrying Hezbollah flags threw themselves on top of the coffins and burst into tears. At least some of the fighters had been temporarily buried in makeshift cemeteries until the truce made a return to their village possible.
The 10-day U.S.-brokered cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, began last Friday and offered a much-needed reprieve for Lebanon after weeks of war. Roughly 2,300 people have been killed in Lebanon in the fighting, according to Lebanese officials, who warn that the death toll could rise.
Hezbollah said it held funerals on Tuesday for more than 40 of its fighters.
Elsewhere in the south, local leaders prepared for more funerals. In Mansori, a village in southern Lebanon near the coast, civil defense workers dug fresh graves at the village cemetery on Tuesday. Nearly every building along the village’s main road had been reduced to rubble, including the village mosque. Rebar and chunks of concrete were strewn across much of the graveyard nearby.
Nearly all of the 4,000 residents of Mansori fled when the war broke out, the community leader, Qassem Dayli, said. Even with the temporary truce, very few have returned to take stock of their homes or collect any valuables left behind.
“We don’t trust the situation will remain calm,” he said. “It is still dangerous here.”
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.
