In the war-torn village of Majdal Selm, southern Lebanon, Hezbollah held a mass funeral on Saturday for 44 people, most of them fighters killed in the ongoing conflict with Israel. The Iran-backed Shia group, which initiated hostilities with Israel on March 2, does not disclose the number of fighters it has lost. However, this mass funeral follows a lull in fighting after the June 17 signing of a US-Iran memorandum of understanding.
Among those buried were 39 fighters, four civilians said to have been killed in Israeli operations, and one man who died of natural causes. An AFP correspondent witnessed trucks carrying the coffins to the burial site, as weeping women held portraits of the dead and of Iran's late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes on Tehran in February.
The funeral occurred as Lebanese President Joseph Aoun traveled to Washington for a meeting with US President Donald Trump, following the latest round of Israel-Lebanon talks that concluded earlier this week. The US-sponsored negotiations, which began in April, aim to reach a peace deal and permanently end the Israel-Hezbollah war.
On June 26, a framework agreement was reached in Washington, under which the Israeli military is to withdraw from southern Lebanon, and the Lebanese army is to deploy, starting with two "pilot zones". This agreement is contingent on the disarmament of Hezbollah, which has rejected both the deal and the negotiations.
