Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader burial mystery

Burial as soon as possible, according to Islamic tradition. But nothing is yet known about the final farewell to Hasan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah killed in an Israeli raid in Beirut last Friday. Lebanese security sources confirmed on Saturday that Nasrallah’s body was recovered intact from the site of the raid in the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capitalhistoric stronghold of the Shiite group. It may even have already been buried. After burial, Islam does not allow the body to be moved, except in exceptional cases.

It is difficult to organize “a big funeral” for the number one of the Shiite group targeted by Israeli operations, “in light of the current situation in Lebanon from a security point of view”, an “Iraqi resistance source” told the Iraqi media. Between risks and difficulties, according to the source, “there is talk of an alternative plan” or the “burial of the martyr in a secret place”, at least for the moment, but most likely in Lebanon. Not in Kerbala, the holy Shiite city in Iraq, as per rumors circulating in recent days.

The Islamic rite

The ‘mystery’ recalls what happened with Mullah Omar, the leader of the (Sunni) Taliban, who died in 2013. The movement confirmed his death in 2015, admitting that its ‘leader’ had died two years earlier. And only nine years later, in 2022, now back in power in Afghanistan, the Taliban made it known that their leader’s tomb would be found in the province of Zabul.

The ‘node’ of the burial of Osama bin Laden also comes to mind, killed in Pakistan in a raid by the Navy Seals on the night of May 1, 2011. Buried at sea, according to what is now history. Same as that reported for IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who blew himself up in October 2019 during an American raid. In all cases there are no certainties.