Hezbollah reported that its longstanding leader had been killed by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, sparking thousands of protests across Pakistani cities.
Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs one day earlier, according to Hezbollah on Saturday, striking a severe blow to the organization he had governed for decades.
During protests and funeral prayers for Nasrallah, around 4,000 people gathered in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and 3,000 thousand in Karachi, the port city in the south.
At the Islamabad demonstration, 27-year-old Taskeen Zafar declared, “We stand against everything Israel continues to do in Palestine and Lebanon, which is the reason we are here now.”
Mushtaq Ahmed, a former senator for Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), was detained by Islamabad police when he was participating in a demonstration outside the National Press Club.
Nasrallah’s assassination signaled a dramatic uptick in the cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has been going on for almost a year, and it raises the possibility of a regional conflict.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on Sunday saying, “Pakistan strongly condemns the increasing Israeli adventurism in the Middle East.”
“The tragic murder of Hezbollah’s secretary general in Lebanon yesterday represents a significant deterioration in an already unstable area.”
Police in Karachi used tear gas canisters to disperse demonstrators who were making their way to the US embassy.
One day after its Palestinian affiliate Hamas launched an unprecedented onslaught on Israel on October 7, Hezbollah started low-intensity cross-border attacks on Israeli forces.
Israel declared almost a year later that it will now concentrate on fighting Hezbollah on its northern border.
Almost 1,205 people, largely civilians, were murdered in Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli numbers that also includes hostages slain in captivity.
