Hassan Nasrallah

Hassan Nasrallah, current leader of the Lebanese Hizbollah was born August 31, 1960 in the Bourj Hammoud, one of the most impoverished and underprivileged neighborhoods in the eastern suburbs of Beirut. There was no running water and no electricity. Houses were often crude shacks made from tin sheets and wood. "I remember the sound of rain striking the metal," says Ayoub Humayed, a parliamentarian who also lived there as a boy.

Hassan Nasrallah was the oldest of three brothers and five sisters. His father, Abdul Karim, was a vegetable vendor from Al Bazuriyah, a small village near Tyre in South Lebanon and his former neighbors recall him as a devout, trustworthy man. But Nasrallah's mother was the force in the family, according to Syrian filmmaker Nabil Mulhim, who interviewed her for a documentary about the Hizbullah leader: "The strong words and the soft face, those are hers," says Mulhim. "And the self-satisfaction. And the toughness."

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