BEIRUT, Lebanon: As the leader of Hezbollah threatened Israel with crushing retaliation for the killing of its top commander, thousands flocked to dance antics in Beirut in a stark example of Lebanon's deep divisions.
In the capital's southern suburbs – a Hezbollah stronghold – tens of thousands of black-clad men and women in military uniforms joined Thursday's funeral procession for slain commander Fuad Shukr.
Across the city on Beirut's waterfront, nearly 8,000 people attended a spectacular dance show by Mayyas, who won the 2022 “America's Got Talent” television competition, that evening.
“I'm sad that people are dying in southern Lebanon and Gaza, but the resistance is not just about carrying a gun and fighting,” said 45-year-old Olga Farhatova.
“Joy, art and celebrating life is also a form of resistance,” the human rights activist told AFP.
Fireworks set off a dance show hours after Hezbollah buried Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs on Tuesday.
Titled 'Qumi' — rise in Arabic — the show was an ode to the Lebanese capital, which has gone through decades of conflict, unrest and years of economic crisis.
“There is a split in the country between those who don't care about the war and feel that … Hezbollah wants to impose its collective identity on them while the other group is fighting,” Farhat said.
“I understand both points of view, but we are tired of wars and crises, we want to enjoy life.”
In the southern suburbs, thousands of Hezbollah supporters chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Dozens of Mayan dancers across the city performed a moving tribute to war-torn southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has exchanged cross-border fire with the Israeli army almost daily since the Gaza war began on October 7.
“I grew up during the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990) and was raised to believe in the Palestinian cause,” Farhat said.
“But today I say 'Lebanon first'.”
The airstrike that killed Shukr and an Iranian military adviser also claimed the lives of three women and two young siblings, authorities said.
In a video clip circulating online, their distraught mother said their lives were “sacrifices for you, Sayyed (Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah).
Hussein Nasreddine, 36, from the southern suburbs, said: “We love life like everyone else… but if Israel drags us into war, it is our duty to die as martyrs.”
Cross-border violence has killed at least 542 people in Lebanon since October, mostly fighters but also including 114 civilians, according to AFP statistics.
On the Israeli side, the army reports 47 dead, including in the annexed Golan Heights.
In June, the head of the Hezbollah bloc in Lebanon's parliament, Mohammad Raad, who lost his son in border clashes, criticized Lebanese “who want to go to nightclubs … beaches and enjoy life” while war rages in the south.
This week, independent lawmaker Mark Daou angered Hezbollah supporters by posting a photo of Thursday night's show with the comment: “The strongest response to Israel is the culture of life and beauty.”
Daou, who was elected after mass protests against the political leadership responsible for plunging the country into economic crisis, told AFP he refused to “reduce Lebanon to a battlefield”.
Many politicians, especially from the Lebanese Christian community, criticized Hezbollah for risking war with Israel.
Peacebuilding expert Sonia Nakad said “the greater the tragedy, the greater the division” in Lebanon.
In Lebanon, power is shared according to sectarian quotas, with communities so divided over the country's past that events after 1943 are absent from official history books.
Each side “wants the other to be their exact copy so they can co-exist while they're opposites in everything,” she said.
“The Lebanese have yet to give up violence against each other, no matter how big their differences,” she said.
Foreign airlines have suspended or canceled flights to Beirut, but many Lebanese expatriates are still streaming in, although some have cut their holidays short.
Rabab Abu Hamdan said she planned to return to the Gulf after feeling “very stressed” in recent days.
“Despite the difficult circumstances, Lebanon remains the best holiday destination,” she said.
