Having Tea with Hezbollah’s No. 2

Across Lebanon, Hezbollah runs special cemeteries—some with their own Facebook pages—for its fighters. I recently visited several of them, including the new Garden of Zeinab, named after the Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter, where I counted a hundred and fifteen recent graves. Each was covered with a long white marble slab that detailed the fighter’s life; the headstone showed a large color photograph. Khodor Safa, nineteen, was in the front row. He died in September, “performing his jihadi duties,” the grave said. His slab was decorated with three votive candles, artificial white flowers, and a small Koran. Nearby, a large balloon offering “Congratulations”—for martyrdom—was attached to the grave of Ali Hussein Wehbi. Several families tended to other gravestones, dusting them off, laying flowers, or sitting alongside them in plastic chairs made available to visitors.

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