After the death of Hassan Nasrallah, there is sadness and disbelief in Beirut

The fight is far from over, says a man named Hussein. The father of a family fled with his wife and children in the middle of the night from the Beirut Shiite suburb of Dahiyeh to escape Israeli bombs and into the center of the Lebanese capital. Now he’s sitting in front of the fancy marina in Zeytuna Bay, surrounded by other refugees, and just doesn’t want to believe it.

Maybe these are all rumors, he exclaims. «The Sayed is alive. We will do it like we did in 2006 and hit the Israelis back.” But it doesn’t help. The Sayed – as Hassan Nasrallah, the all-powerful Hezbollah leader, was always called by his followers – is dead. He died on Friday in a massive Israeli airstrike on a bunker in the Shiite militia-controlled district of Beirut. Apparently an unknown number of civilians were also killed.

Women cry, men run through the streets shouting

It was unclear all night whether Nasrallah – who is seen by a section of Lebanese society as the embodiment of the fight against Israel – was still alive or not. But on Saturday afternoon it was clear: the mythical leader of Hezbollah was dead. Immediately, some of the numerous Shiite refugees in the streets of Beirut burst into loud screams and wails.

Women cry desperately, men run through the streets screaming. Others just collapse, staring into nothingness. For his mostly Shiite followers, Nasrallah was more than just a leader. He was their guiding star, their sun, their blood and their soul – as the large audience at his publicly broadcast speeches sometimes used to call him. The fact that he is no longer among the living is beyond her comprehension.

The day after the death of Lebanon’s most powerful man, the mood in the capital Beirut fluctuates somewhere between madness, panic, sadness, shock, denial of reality and total chaos. Many Lebanese had spent almost their entire lives in Nasrallah’s shadow. His death therefore seems almost surreal to them. All over the city, thousands camped outdoors during the night due to Israeli air strikes on Shiite residential areas. Whole families sit on the Corniche, the waterfront promenade where tanned joggers usually run along and wrinkled men stoically fish.

Extreme tension hangs over the city

Meanwhile, in Hamra, the old center of West Beirut, a few men are sitting in a café. One of them is crying. It’s the end of the world, he says about Nasrallah’s death. “They killed Sayed, just as they killed Hussein,” he adds, referring to the first martyr of Shiite Islam, who died in the Battle of Karbala in 680. Then the café owner arrives, a massive man in a black T-shirt. “The Sayed is dead, that’s it, over, done,” he snorts. “Now you’d best get out of here and go home. There will be trouble soon.”

In fact, there is extreme tension over the city. Armored personnel carriers and jeeps from the Lebanese army drive along the east-west axis that runs through Beirut just south of the city center. Normally, in the event of war, soldiers stay in the barracks so as not to become targets of Israeli attacks themselves. But after the death of Nasrallah, who had seemingly reigned supreme over Lebanon for decades, there are now fears that the divided, multi-confessional country is sinking into chaos.

That’s why shopkeepers everywhere are barricading their shops, and even the ever-busy money changers, who offer their services at all hours, are closed. The fear of unrest is not unfounded – because not everyone is mourning Nasrallah’s death. In the Sunni district of Tarik al Jadida, where life goes on as normal, Choror Jafaati shrugs his shoulders: “I don’t care at all that he’s dead. On the contrary, it’s good. He brought this all upon us.”

“Others should now die for Gaza”

The taxi driver says there has been war in Lebanon for as long as he can remember. «I sold my house to send my son to university. He’s an engineer – but he can’t find any work here.” He’s fed up. “We want to live like people in the Gulf states. Others should now die for Gaza. It is enough.” Many Christians think similarly. A new Lebanon is now beginning, says an ex-soldier in the Ashrafieh district of East Beirut. «I respect Nasrallah. But that is the end of Hezbollah. Now the army should take over and end the war.”

But Beirut is far from that. Dahiye, the Hezbollah-controlled district in the deep south of Beirut, was bombarded throughout the night and is now the target of attacks again. The highway that crosses it is empty. In the seemingly deserted alleys, pennants with portraits of the youngest martyrs blow in the wind. Hezbollah people are said to have now gone from house to house and asked residents to leave the area.

In the early evening you suddenly hear the rattle of rapid-fire weapons over Beirut. At first it is unclear what happened. Then suddenly there is a rumor that the Hezbollah television channel al-Manar had accidentally broadcast an old Nasrallah speech. Some of his followers then mistakenly believed that their leader was still alive – and shot into the air for joy.