On Wednesday, Lebanon held a solemn funeral for journalists Farah Omar and Rabih Maamari, who were killed by an Israeli drone strike while they were in the south. The ceremony took place amid deep sorrow and grief. The coffins, draped with the Lebanese flag, arrived in the courtyard of the Al-Mayadeen channel headquarters in Beirut, where a large crowd of political, social, religious, and media figures, as well as colleagues from "Al-Mayadeen" and other media outlets, gathered, along with their families, who wore Palestinian keffiyehs.
Upon arrival, the atmosphere was filled with ululations and applause, while Quranic verses were recited over loudspeakers. Sheikh Maher Hamoud, head of the Union of Resistance Scholars, led the prayers for the two deceased and delivered a eulogy prior to the prayer, affirming the martyrdom of Farah and Rabih, stating that their souls ascended directly from the earth to heaven, that they became the mouths of paradise's birds, and that they are now at peace and resting.
Sheikh Hamoud paid tribute to the families of the martyrs and the families of martyrs from Gaza and the West Bank, as well as to the three female martyrs in Ainata. He concluded by declaring that Omar and Maamari are martyrs on the path to Jerusalem in the face of Zionism, accepted by God, with their sins forgiven and the hearts of their loved ones reassured.
After the funeral prayer, everyone took a final look at the coffins amid profound emotion. The coffins were then carried by members of the Islamic Health Authority to be paraded in the Al-Mayadeen courtyard amidst fervent applause and ululations. They were later taken to their final resting places, with Maamari buried in the Martyrs’ Garden in Beirut and Omar laid to rest in her hometown of Machghara in Western Bekaa.
