Lebanon prepares to bury Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The political landscape of the Middle East transformed in a matter of hours over the weekend.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Yeah, Lebanon announced three days of mourning after the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanese militant and political group Hezbollah for the past 32 years. He was one of the region's most influential and divisive figures, and he was assassinated in a wave of Israeli airstrikes that took out a city block in Beirut. His killing and that of other senior leaders has left the Iran-backed group reeling, all while Israeli airstrikes continue. Over a thousand people have been killed, and the Lebanese prime minister says a million could be displaced.

MARTIN: NPR's Jane Arraf is with us now from southwest Beirut. Jane, good morning.

JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.

MARTIN: Jane, so much has happened just over the last 48 hours. Tell us the latest from where you are.

ARRAF: Well, we are in a neighborhood in Beirut in front of a modest-looking apartment building which is missing one floor. This was the target of an Israeli strike. It appears to have been a drone attack since the building itself hasn't been collapsed. And the target - a senior Palestinian official from one of the Palestinian factions that has been fighting Israel for decades. This is important because it's not just geographically different from where Israel has been striking - so far, almost all of its strikes in Beirut have centered around the southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has bases - but also because it may have moved into a new front beyond Hezbollah. In addition to targeting a Palestinian official, there was an attack on Hamas leaders, the militant Palestinian group Israel's fighting in Gaza in the south of Lebanon.

MARTIN: So, you know, all this happened after the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed on Friday by Israeli airstrikes. How are people in Lebanon reacting to this news? You've been recognizing that so many people are on the move. I mean, it's hard to necessarily get your hands around it, but what are you hearing?

ARRAF: Yeah, it's really hard for people to get their heads around it, too. I mean, for many of the faithful, it is almost impossible to comprehend that Hassan Nasrallah, who has been the head of Hezbollah for 32 years - not just a militant leader and a political leader but a spiritual leader - hard to comprehend that he's gone. We're seeing less of the grief, the weeping in the streets and more defiance today.

I was speaking to a bus driver and some people who are scrambling onto a minibus to try to get out of Beirut. And they were saying that despite Nasrallah being gone, the fight would continue. He will be buried sometime this week it's expected, but so far, no details. And in the meantime, just waves and waves of people displaced from the south of Lebanon, the south of Beirut and nowhere for a lot of them to stay.

MARTIN: Do we have a sense of how Hezbollah is expected to react now?

ARRAF: Well, we are waiting to hear from the second in command, who is giving an address later today, and he's expected to say that they're going to continue the fight against Israel. There's not much else he could say. They're not going to lay down their arms. But this has become so much more complicated than it was, and it was complicated before because there's Iran in the mix. Hezbollah is Iran-backed. We need to see what happens with Iran. There's Syria next door, more than a million Syrians here and - extremely complicated.

MARTIN: That is NPR's Jane Arraf from Beirut. Jane, thank you so much.

ARRAF: Thank you.

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