By Jaidaa Taha
CAIRO (Reuters) – The killing of Hezbollah’s leader in Israel, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was met with silence by many Sunni-led countries in the region, highlighting the divide between populations angry at Israel and authorities normalizing relations with Israel or opposing Hezbollah’s patron Iran.
Nasrallah, who has led the powerful Shiite armed group for 32 years, has made regional enemies beyond Israel and the West. Gulf states and the broader Arab League designated the group as a “terrorist organization” in 2016, although the League revoked the designation earlier this year.
Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia said in a statement on Sunday that it was following developments in Lebanon with “serious concern”, and urged it to safeguard Lebanon’s sovereignty and regional security. But it did not mention Nasrallah.
And the Sunni-ruled countries of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have remained silent on Nasrallah’s assassination. The UAE and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel in 2020, and Bahrain quashed a sizable pro-democracy uprising by its Shiite community in 2011.
The pro-Iranian Bahraini TV LuaLua, however, aired a video showing a small-scale march that it said was of concern to Nasrallah. The channel said the Bahraini regime “attacked” the protesters and detained some of them.
Bahrain’s opposition website Bahrain Mirror reported that the kingdom detained Shi’ite clerics for offering condolences to Nasrallah. Reuters could not verify Bahraini media reports.
According to a statement from the Egyptian presidency, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke to Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati by phone and said that Cairo refused to violate Lebanon’s sovereignty – without mentioning Nasrallah.
Egypt has criticized Iran and its proxies in the past, although it has maintained informal contacts with Iran and Egypt’s foreign minister has held official meetings with Iranian officials over the past year.
In his first televised speech since Nasrallah’s assassination on Sunday, Sisi said the region was in a difficult situation, and said that Egypt “manages the problem in a way that preserves it and the region, without being dragged into problems that could affect stability and security.” .” He also did not mention Nasrallah in the speech.
Other countries like Syria and Iraq have declared three days of mourning.
LIKE AND CRITICIZE
Hassan Nasrallah’s name has been trending online in many Arab countries since Saturday, and many are mourning his loss.
Sheikh Ahmed Bin Hamad al-Khalili, the grand mufti of the Gulf state of Oman, said in a post on X that his country was “saddened by the death of the secretary general of Hezbollah, after he was a thorn in the throat of the Zionist project for more than thirty years.”
But other users criticized Nasrallah, especially over Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. Along with support from Iran and Russia, the intervention ultimately helped President Bashar al-Assad take control of much of the country from anti-government rebels.
“Nasrallah’s victims in Syria are hundreds of thousands, do they deserve mercy from Muslims?” Iraq-based journalist Omar AlJmmal said in X.
UAE-based journalist Saif alDareei shared in a post on X a video he said showed the “joy” of residents in Syria’s Idlib province after news of Nasrallah’s assassination.
“Hezbollah did what the Jews did not do to our brothers in Syria,” he said.
Saudi Arabian poet Abdul Latif Al-Sheikh said in X: “Gloating (over the killing of Nasrallah) is not just random hostility, but a natural reaction to a series of dirty policies and actions that have aroused widespread resentment.”
Others are trying to balance criticism against Nasrallah and Israel, whose military operations in Gaza and recent escalations in Lebanon have fueled widespread anger.
“Joy and joy now have a victory for the enemy, fragmenting the (Arab) nation and betraying the people of Lebanon and Gaza,” said Egyptian TV host Lamis Elhadidi on X.
“Put your differences aside and forget about Iran, because there are Arab countries being bombed every hour.”
