Disbelief in Beirut after Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah killed

Armed men fired shots in the air and shut down shops in parts of Beirut on Saturday after the death of Nasrallah. Hezbollah supporters said they were in a state of shock and disbelief.

Nasrallah’s death marked a devastating blow to Hezbollah as it reels from an intense campaign of Israeli attacks. Even as the news emerged some of the group’s supporters were desperately hoping that somehow he was still alive.

“God, I hope it’s not true. It’s a disaster if it’s true,” says Zahraa, a young woman who had been displaced overnight from Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut. “He was leading us. He was everything to us. We were under his wings,” she told Reuters tearfully by phone.

She says other displaced people around her fainted or began to scream when they received notifications on their phone of Hezbollah’s statement confirming his death.

Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah since the Shi’ite Muslim group’s previous leader was killed in an Israeli operation in 1992, was known for his televised addresses – watched carefully by both the group’s backers and its opponents.

“We’re still waiting for him to come out on the television at 5 p.m. and tell us that everything is okay, that we can go back home,” Zahraa said.

In some parts of Beirut, armed men came into shops and told owners to shut them down, witnesses said. It was not immediately clear what faction the armed men belonged to.

Sprays of gunshots were heard in the Hamra district in the city’s west as mourners fired in the air, residents there said. Crowds were heard chanting, “For you, Nasrallah!”

Israeli military says it has killed Hezbollah chief Nasrallah: Sherwin Bryce-Pease: