BEIRUT, Lebanon: As the leader of Hezbollah threatened Israel with severe retribution for the killing of their top commander, thousands of people in Beirut flocked to 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 uniforms joined a funeral procession Thursday for slain commander Fuad Shukr.
That evening, nearly 8,000 people across the city on Beirut's waterfront attended a spectacular dance show by Mayyas, the 2022 winner of America's Got Talent.
“I'm sad that people are dying in southern Lebanon and Gaza, but resistance is not just carrying weapons and fighting,” said 45-year-old Olga Farhat.
“Joy, art and celebrating life is also a form of resistance,” the rights activist told AFP.
Fireworks opened the dance show hours after Hezbollah buried Shukr, killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs on Tuesday.
The show, titled Qumi — Arabic for uprising — was an ode to the Lebanese capital, which has endured decades of conflict, upheaval and years of economic crisis.
“There is a split in the country between those who don't care about the war and feel that … Hezbollah wants to impose its collective identity on them while another 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, where Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire with the Israeli army almost daily since the Gaza war began on October 7.
“I grew up during the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990) and I was raised to believe in the Palestinian cause,” Farhat said.
“But today I say 'Lebanon first.'
The raid, which killed Shukr and an Iranian military adviser, also claimed the lives of three women and two young siblings, authorities said.
In a video circulating online, their dead mother said their lives were “sacrificed for you, Saeed (Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah).”
Speaking from the southern suburbs, Hussein Nasreddin, 36, said: “We love life like everyone else… but if Israel drags us into a war, it is our duty to die as martyrs.”
Cross-border violence has killed at least 542 people in Lebanon since October, most of them fighters, but also 114 civilians, according to 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 Lebanon's parliament, Mohammad Raad, who lost a son in border clashes, criticized Lebanese “who want to go to nightclubs … on the beach and enjoy life” as the country rages. noon.
Independent lawmaker Mark Dow angered Hezbollah supporters this week by posting a photo of the Thursday night 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 slide into economic crisis, told AFP that he refused to “turn Lebanon into a battlefield”.
Many politicians, especially from Lebanon's Christian community, have criticized Hezbollah for risking war with Israel.
Peacekeeping expert Sonia Nakad said “the greater the tragedy, the greater the division” in Lebanon.
In Lebanon, power is divided according to sectarian quotas, with communities so divided over the country's past that events after 1943 are absent from official history books.
Each side “wants the other to be an exact copy of them to be able to coexist, while they are opposites in everything,” she said.
“The Lebanese have not yet given up using violence against each other, no matter how great their differences,” she said.
Foreign airlines have suspended or canceled flights to Beirut, but many Lebanese expatriates are still flocking, although some have cut their holidays short.
Rabab Abu Hamdan said she plans to return to the Persian Gulf after feeling “very stressed in the last few days”.
“Despite the difficult circumstances, Lebanon remains the best place to go,” she said.
