Beirut airport to close Sunday during funeral of slain Hezbollah leader

Beirut airport will close for four hours on Sunday during the funeral of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon’s civil aviation authority has announced.

“The airport will be closed, and takeoffs and landings… will halt on February 23, 2025, from 12:00 pm (1000 GMT) until 4:00 pm,” the authority says in a statement carried by official media on Tuesday.

Nasrallah was killed in a huge Israeli air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27, as Israel scaled up its campaign against the Iran-backed terror group following almost a year of cross-border hostilities initiated by Hezbollah.

Sunday’s funeral will also be for Hashem Safieddine, a senior Hezbollah figure who had been chosen to succeed Nasrallah, before he too was killed in an Israeli raid in October.

The funeral is to begin at 1:00 pm at a sports stadium in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

It will include a speech by current Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem, and is to be followed by a procession to Nasrallah’s burial site.

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