Lebanon’s Minister of Culture, Ghassan Salame, paid tribute to the late composer and playwright Ziad Rahbani in a heartfelt message shared on X, following news of his death.
“We long feared this day,” Salame wrote, “knowing the steady decline of his health and his growing reluctance to seek treatment. Plans to care for him—whether at home or abroad—faded into distant thoughts, as Ziad no longer had the strength to imagine enduring the procedures that awaited him.”
“May God bless the soul of a remarkable Rahbani,” he added. “We will mourn him even as we continue to sing the songs that will never fade.”