Last update - 00:00 20/10/2006
Hezbollah marks Al-Quds Day in Beirut
By The Associated Press and Haaretz Service
BEIRUT - In past years, Hezbollah has marked "Al-Quds Day" - the annual day of protest calling for Muslim rule of Jerusalem - by staging massive military parades in Lebanon's capital.
But this year's event on Friday was a more subdued affair. Instead of thousands of guerrillas marching in uniform, the invitation-only event in a concert hall featured an orchestra, a choir and several anti-Israeli speeches.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the keynote speaker at last year's parade, was noticeably missing Friday. His deputy filled in, telling the hundreds of supporters in the hall that Hezbollah would not give up its fight against Israel.
Hezbollah said it didn't feel the need to organize a mass rally this year for "Al-Quds Day" after hundreds of thousands of supporters took to the streets last month for a "victory" rally in bombed-out southern Beirut.
"The (September) rally was an expression of the historic victory, and the masses of people who came from the various Lebanese regions reaffirmed their support of the victorious resistance. And because of this exceptional effort made by the masses... we decided to replace the central (Al-Quds Day) rally with political festivities," Hezbollah said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press.
"Al-Quds Day" began in 1981 when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared the last Friday of the Islamic month of Ramadan to be a day in which Muslims show support for Muslim rule of the city.
While Beirut had no demonstrations Friday, millions staged pro-Jerusalem
rallies in Iran while thousands demonstrated in other Muslim countries.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, hundreds of people carried yellow Hezbollah flags through the streets of the southern town of Kfar Kila. But Lebanese troops stopped the demonstrators from getting too close to the Lebanon-Israeli border.