BEIRUT — Thousands of Hezbollah supporters marched Monday behind the yellow-draped coffin of one of its most prominent fighters killed the day before in what the group said was an Israeli airstrike in Syria, pumping their fists angrily in the air and chanting, "Death to Israel."
Tehran added to the combustible mix even further, announcing Monday that a senior Iranian general also died in the airstrike in the Golan Heights, along with the six Hezbollah members.
The airstrike — neither confirmed nor denied by Israel — was a serious blow to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, stretched thin and neck-deep in Syria's civil war where the group's Shiite fighters are battling alongside President Bashar Assad's forces.
The emotional funeral of Jihad Mughniyeh — the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah operative assassinated in 2008 in Damascus and one of the six Hezbollah fighters killed Sunday in the Golan — is likely to further ratchet up tensions between the militant Lebanese Shiite group and its archenemy Israel.
Jihad Mughniyeh is the group's most prominent figure to die so far in Syria since the Shiite militant group joined the conflict next door in 2012, fighting on Assad's side against the Sunni-led rebellion. The younger Mughniyeh had been photographed with Hezbollah chief, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, and with the powerful Iranian Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, highlighting his standing within the group.
Thousands of mourners crammed a main street in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Ghobeiri in southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, as dozens of men in military uniforms waved yellow Hezbollah flags. Women threw rice and confetti from balconies in celebration of Mughniyeh's martyrdom.
"They did this to terrify us," shouted a man over a loudspeaker. "But we say: Death to Israel!"
"Death to Israel!" the crowd roared. Mughniyeh was later buried next to his father, at the "Garden of the Two Martyrs" cemetery.
The deaths of the six Hezbollah fighters elevated tensions between Israel and the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement, which recently boasted of rockets that can hit any part of the Jewish state. But it was also a significant setback, coming on the heels of a confirmation last week by Nasrallah that the organization had uncovered and arrested a senior operative who was spying for Israel.
Hezbollah said its fighters were targeted as they were "inspecting positions" near the Israeli-controlled border in the Golan.
Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.