Iran doctors treat Nasrallah amid reports of stroke
Iran has sent a number of doctors to Lebanon to treat its ally Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was recently hospitalized after reportedly suffering a stroke, the website of the Iranian opposition newspaper Kayhan reported Sunday night.
“After Hassan Nasrallah’s speech was canceled, sources loyal to Lebanon’s Hizbullah announced he had contracted the flu, but some sources said “Nasrallah suffered a stroke”, the newspaper said in a report.
The Iranian opposition newspaper quoted Beirut International Airport employees as saying, “Several people wearing doctors’ uniforms were sent from Tehran to Beirut on a plane by the Miraj Air Company, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.”
Sources affiliated with Lebanese Hezbollah and IRGC news agencies, including Tasnim, reported canceling Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s speech due to his illness.
The cancelation of Nasrallah’s speech, which was scheduled for last Friday evening, was due to his flu-related illness, the party’s Public Relations Department said in a statement, adding that his illness prevents him from speaking normally.
The statement, which was published by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel in Lebanon, added that the Secretary-General is scheduled to give a speech next Tuesday evening to commemorate the death of Qassem Soleimani, former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, and Abou Mehdi al-Mouhandis, former deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units.
Soleimani and al-Mouhandis were killed by a U.S. drone strike near the Baghdad airport on 3 January.
If Nasrallah does not appear in the anticipated speech, which Hezbollah is keen to observe, the news of his exposure to the flu will be doubted by many parties, especially the Israelis.
Nasrallah is in critical condition, CBC reported. Lebanese sources said Nasrallah was transferred four days ago to the Rasoul Aazam Hospital in Beirut’s southern countryside, after suffering from a stroke.
On its part, the Israeli Jerusalem Post confirmed the news, saying that “Hassan Nasrallah was transferred to the intensive care unit in one of Beirut’s hospitals after suffering from a stroke.”
A video of a Hezbollah doctor was also leaked from the Rasoul Aazam hospital, where Hassan Nasrallah is undergoing treatment.
The doctor, who looked very tired, said that Iranian doctors were called to treat Hassan Nasrallah in the hospital, expressing his extreme surprise.
Since 2015, numerous news about the illness of the 62-year-old secretary-general of Hezbollah has spread.
In 2021, when news of Hassan Nasrallah’s illness was published, Faisal Shukr, a senior Hezbollah official, described it as a “seasonal allergy.”
“Hassan Nasrallah’s physical condition is good,” Faisal Shukr told Iran’s Tasnim news agency. “What Hezbollah’s leader has suffered is a severe, sensitive cold that infects the lungs every year in the spring.”
In a related context, Iran’s official news agency (IRNA) on Sunday evening quoted what it described as “an informed source in the Lebanese Hezbollah” as saying that “Hassan Nasrallah is in good health and is undergoing treatment after he has been infected with the flu virus.”
Several Israeli reports in recent years have cited Nasrallah’s deteriorating health, but Hezbollah sources have denied this.
Israel is monitoring the health status of Nasrallah, which it classifies as its most prominent enemy. The security services, in cooperation with the relevant authorities in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, continue to monitor every speech of Nasrallah in an effort to ascertain his health condition.
The Hebrew media revealed that the Ministry of Defense has recruited doctors to monitor the health and psychological state of leaders in various factions, most prominently Nasrallah, through their pictures and the footage they appear around.
