Sydney’s mosques are packed with hundreds of people paying tribute to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Large crowds took to the streets outside the Al Rahman Mosque in Kingsgrove, in Sydney’s southwest, for Monday night’s service commemorating Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on Friday.
Hezbollah, a militant and political group from Lebanon, has been listed as a terrorist organization in Australia.
Cars were double parked on surrounding footpaths as an estimated crowd of around 1,000 people, mostly dressed in dark clothing, gathered for the 7pm start of the vigil which will take place over three nights.
The first night of the vigil was live-streamed and Al Rahman Mosque wrote on Facebook that it would hold a service “for the souls of the righteous martyrs, the master of resistance, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.”
Some mourners were turned away when the mosque reached capacity and instead had to watch the vigil on their phones, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Two other Sydney mosques in the city’s south are also hosting three-day vigils.
The Sayeda Zainab Center in Banksia will hold mourning councils for Nasrallah from Sunday to Tuesday.
Hundreds of mourners have gathered outside the Al Rahman Mosque in Sydney’s south-west to pay their respects to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Al Zahra Mosque in Arncliffe will also hold events over three days.
‘Three days of mourning will be held… for the soul of the leader of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the souls of the righteous martyrs who departed with him and all those who have been innocently killed as a result of the aggression Zionist in Lebanon and Palestine,” the mosque’s Facebook page said.
All three mosques practice the Shiite branch of Islam, which is the dominant Muslim belief of Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran.
Jewish groups called the services “deeply disturbing.”
“Hezbollah is an organization that carries out terrorist operations using cells around the world to attack non-military targets, including community centres, aircraft and embassies,” Executive Council of Australian Jews co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin told the publication.
“This goes to the heart of public and national security and requires a strong police response.”
Hezbollah was listed as a terrorist organization in Australia in 2021.
On Sunday, small groups of young people, many of them masked, were seen at much larger pro-Palestinian rallies in Sydney and Melbourne carrying framed portraits of Nasrallah and waving the Hezbollah flag.
Several Sydney mosques to hold three-day vigils to commemorate Nasrallah
Home Secretary Tony Burke harshly criticized protesters who showed “any indication of support” for a terrorist organization and threatened to cancel their visas.
“It draws the immediate attention of our law enforcement agencies,” Mr. Burke said.
‘There is a higher level of scrutiny if someone has a visa. I have made it clear from day one that I will consider refusing and canceling visas to anyone seeking to incite discord in Australia.’
Organizers of the Melbourne rally told AAP that the group carrying Hezbollah flags was not affiliated with those leading the rally.
Islamic community leaders also said this group was not representative of the Muslim community in Australia or the protest, which called on Israel to stop military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, where they are fighting Hezbollah.
‘They are definitely a minority. An absolute, tiny minority,” Islamic Council of Victoria president Adel Salman told The Australian.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Lebanon on Friday.
“From my own experience, my knowledge of the community, there is no support for Hezbollah, there is no love for Hezbollah, right now, this is all about support for the Lebanese people.”
Meanwhile, fighting has intensified in the Middle East as Israel is expected to launch a ground attack on Lebanon to topple Hezbollah.
Elite Israeli commandos were reported to be attacking the group’s infrastructure, including weapons sites and control centers, as it struggles to recover from the loss of Nasrallah.
“They are targeting key sites that have been built on the other side of the border area,” an Israeli official said. The telegraph.
IDF tanks have massed on the northern border ahead of an anticipated incursion into Lebanon despite pressure from Israel’s allies to de-escalate immediately.
Hezbollah said its militants were prepared and “ready” for war, as Lebanon prepared to deploy its own army to the south, fearing a collapse into all-out war.
Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets into northern Israel since war broke out in Gaza last October, in response to Israeli bombing of the Strip.
Hundreds of Israeli tanks have lined the border with Lebanon, facing the threat of a ground invasion.
Smoke rises from the area as a result of the Israeli army’s attacks on the city of Hijam today.
But with some 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes and jobs in northern Israel by the attacks, Israel has vowed to defeat Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.
In a week of intense airstrikes, Israel reportedly eliminated dozens of Hezbollah-linked officials by bombing its headquarters and killing Hamas and Iranian officials.
Hamas, which fights Israel in the Gaza Strip, announced today that its leader in Lebanon had been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu al-Amine, was killed today in an attack on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre, days after former Hezbollah chief Nasrallah was killed. in Beirut.
The group said al-Amine was killed along with his wife, son and daughter in what it called a “terrorist and criminal murder.”
