The announcement set off screams and tears in parts of Beirut where people were camping out after fleeing the Dahiya, the Hezbollah-dominated area near the Lebanese capital that had emptied out as Israel pounded it with airstrikes overnight. Some collapsed in one another's arms; others shouted that it could not be true. Yet in other parts of Beirut, people fired gunshots into the air in celebration.
Along the corniche, a seaside promenade, a 50-year-old Dahiya resident named Nada sat on a bench overlooking the sea, her eyes swollen and red from crying.
"It's a huge loss for us. He meant everything to us: security, safety, honor," said Nada, who like many other followers declined to give her full name, given the volatility of the moment. "He was our protector in Lebanon, because the government is absent. Nobody defended us except him."
The "Sayyid," as Nasrallah was called by many, was one of the most polarizing figures in Lebanon, a reflection of the sectarian divisions in a country perpetually mired in strife among its 18 officially recognized religious groups.
He was beloved among Shiite Muslims, a historically marginalized group in the Arab world, who said he stood up for them and defended from Israel their heartland in southern Lebanon. But many from Lebanon's Christian, Sunni Muslim and Druze sects have historically felt nothing but enmity for Nasrallah, arguing that he used Hezbollah's power to take the entire country hostage to his own interests.
On Saturday, some Beirut residents blamed Nasrallah for dragging Lebanon into the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip -- a conflict they felt was not their own.
"We're paying the price for the sake of others," said a man drinking coffee with friends in a Sunni neighborhood who gave his name as Youssef al-Abiyad. Now that Nasrallah was gone, he said, "We'll reach a compromise. And there's no way other than compromise."
Regardless of whether people revered or reviled him, Nasrallah had maintained such an aura of untouchability that his death came, above all, as a disquieting shock.
"They are targeting the most powerful party in Lebanon. God knows what this will usher forward," said Joseph Haddad, 60, as he played backgammon at an intersection in Achrafieh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood.
He was not alone in fearing that sectarian strife might erupt: Lebanese soldiers could be seen deploying across Beirut on Saturday in a bid to preserve calm.
Many of Nasrallah's supporters clung to defiant disbelief, or just defiance.
"It's a rumor! He's alive! He's alive!" a group of women shouted from the balcony of a building in Hamra, in west Beirut. People erupted in cheers and screams.
"We'll keep following his path," Jamila Ghaith, 53, cried out as she absorbed the news on the steps of the large mosque in downtown Beirut, where she and others were camping out after fleeing the Dahiya. "Even if he died, he'll win."
She added that her six children would keep following in his footsteps. "Even if I lose all six," she said, "I don't care."
In the Sunni neighborhood of Tarek al-Jdideh, a Sunni woman displaced from the Dahiya, Nadia Khalil, was still smiling, convinced Nasrallah was alive. "He'll be back again," she said. "My heart said so."
She was not the only non-Shiite interviewed Saturday who praised Nasrallah for fighting Israel. Others who once despised Nasrallah expressed some ambivalence about his assassination, underscoring how Israel's assaults on Gaza and Lebanon have rallied even Hezbollah's critics to unite against Israel.