Suspended Grief: The Promise of Return, Even After Death

UNDER the steady grind of a small bulldozer expanding the cemetery, new graves appear almost daily in Haret Saida, on the outskirts of the city of Sidon. At one grave, Hassan Kobaissy, a 20-year-old paramedic, sprays a name in red across a fresh headstone. He steps back, studies it, then moves to the next. Packed tightly together, the graves hold bodies in wooden caskets — a departure from traditional Islamic burial rites. 

Families visit knowing this is not a final resting place and that the dead, like the living, are in transit.

“When someone is buried temporarily, grief remains suspended,” said the father of a paramedic killed in an Israeli attack. “Only when the war ends do you get the closure you need.” 

“When someone is buried temporarily, grief remains suspended. Only when the war ends do you get the closure you need.”Father of paramedic killed in Israeli strike

In temporary burial sites such as this one, the body of the deceased is interred as a wadi‘a — entrusted for safekeeping until it can be returned home. These sites are either designated sections of existing cemeteries or vacant lands set aside by the municipalities for that purpose. Those killed by Israel and those who die of natural causes are buried this way during the war.

On March 28, five paramedics, volunteers with the Islamic Risala Scout Association, were killed in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh when an Israeli drone struck the site of a funeral after they had transported the body of an elderly man, according to a relative. Instead of delivering his body to his hometown for burial, they were killed alongside him.

Four of the paramedics were from the same family: two brothers-in-law and two nephews. Another paramedic and three journalists were killed in a separate Israeli strike the same day. Since March 2, 110 healthcare workers and 29 media workers have been killed in Israeli attacks.

Kobaissy, displaced from Dweir, helped bury his colleagues in Haret Saida as a wadi‘a. A Civil Defense volunteer for the past year, he paused at one grave. 

“This one was the hardest,” he said, pointing to the grave of his friend Hasan Mahmoud Kossaibany, a football coach from Harouf.

“He was my friend for eight years,” Kobaissy said. “And I am the one who buried him.”

During the 2024 escalation, 56 people were temporarily interred in a designated section of Haret Saida cemetery before being returned home, according to Hasan Taher, who oversees the site. Since March 2,  he says, at least 91 people have been buried that way and the number continues to grow. Despite the April 17 ceasefire, intensified Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon have made it increasingly dangerous — if not impossible — to transport the dead to their hometown burial sites.

Provisional burials have become routine, according to Mahmoud Karaki, a spokesperson for the Islamic Health Authority.

“Our role ends when we hand the body to the family,” he explained. “But in heavy or double strikes, bodies can lose their identity markers or be reduced to fragments.” 

In those cases, civil defense teams collect DNA samples, record identifying features, and mark graves with numbers and the words “unknown identity.” The remains are placed in wooden caskets designed to preserve them for later transfer.

“For now,” Karaki added, “burying people is a daily practice.”

From Ambulance to Grave

Zaher Abu Zeid, whose son Ibrahim was among the five paramedics killed in Zawtar on March 28, expressed his longing to bury him beside his mother in their village. “Haret Saida welcomed us, but I cannot accept that my son remains buried far from his mother.”

He visits his son’s grave every day. 

“When the war ends, the mourning will start again,” he said. “Burying someone temporarily means we will bury them twice, and it breaks my heart.” Zaher’s son had insisted on continuing his work despite the risks. 

“No matter what happens, I need to save people. I will never abandon them,” he recalled Ibrahim saying. “Who will help them if we leave?”

“They sacrificed their blood to help the wounded,” Zaher said. “They believed the ambulance had international protection, that no one would strike it. But it was struck.”

Ambulances and medical workers are protected under international humanitarian law, which prohibits targeting medical transport and personnel. Yet Kobaissy and his peers now avoid crowds — because Israeli strikes targeting paramedics do not discriminate, and the civilians beside them would pay the price.

 “People are now scared to be close to paramedics,” Zaher said. “Even journalists, the Lebanese army, UNIFIL, and civilians are being targeted. No one is spared.”

As Israel devastates more  towns and villages to create depopulated areas in the South, families are left wondering when they will be able to go back.

“Do you think we would bury our loved ones this way if we didn't believe we would return one day?Zaher Abu Zeid, father of paramedic killed in Israeli strike

“Do you think we would bury our loved ones this way if we didn't believe we would return one day?” Zaher said. “We trust the resistance,” he continued, “because our state doesn’t care about us, and our army can’t protect us.”

A Second Burial, a Second Loss

Layla, Zaher’s sister, lost her husband in an Israeli strike in 2024. He was buried first in Mayfadoun and reburied in his village months later. 

“It’s harder when you can’t say goodbye,” she said. “Funeral rites ease grief, but a temporary burial interrupts it. They took him straight from the ambulance to the grave.”

The absence or shortening of funeral rites can leave families with lingering guilt. Mary A. Chahine, a psychologist and psychotherapist, said traditional mourning practices help people honor the dead and begin accepting the loss. “When those rituals are disrupted, families may feel they have fallen short.”

“Mourning is closely tied to memory and place,” Chahine said. “When families grieve away from their homes, the absence of familiar surroundings can intensify the sense of loss, adding that when burial takes place elsewhere, families may feel the deceased has been separated from their roots.

“Returning the dead to their hometowns often brings a sense of relief,” Chahine explained, “as families feel they have fulfilled the wishes of the deceased and restored a sense of belonging.”

For Layla, the second burial doubled her loss. 

“When you go back to your village and see his things, you expect him to welcome you,” she said. “Instead, you realize he’s gone and you need to bury him again.”

All three of Layla’s sisters lost their husbands and one also lost her son on March 28, along with Zaher’s son. They were laid to rest together in Haret Saida. 

“I tell them real mourning will come later,” she said. “When they bury them again, that is when they will feel the real pain.”

Anthropologist Kinda Chaib writes that village cemeteries in southern Lebanon are “ordinary sacred places,” forming a foundation for collective memory, identity formation, and ties to the land, shaping how communities understand themselves. When families cannot bury loved ones in their hometowns, that connection between land, memory and belonging is disrupted. 

“The idea behind the wadi‘a is a promise. A promise to return to the village.”Abu Hadi Krayyem, Hezbollah's media officer in Beirut

For decades, Israel held the bodies of Lebanese and Palestinians in secret military-run mass graves, marked with numbers rather than names.

“The martyrs whose bodies were held by Israel before 2000 are also considered a wadi‘a, as their burial remains incomplete,” said Hezbollah's media officer in Beirut, Abu Hadi Krayyem. “They were buried in what Israel called ‘cemeteries of numbers,’ and later brought back to Lebanon in prisoner exchanges.”

“The idea behind the wadi‘a is a promise,” Abu Hadi added. “A promise to return to the village.”

Buried Away from Home 

While the practice is largely rooted in southern Lebanon, with sites in Wardaniyyeh, Tyre, Jwayya and Saida, it has spread to areas hosting displaced families. Space constraints and the high cost of burial plots have led to the opening of a cemetery in Choueifat, where families pay a fee of about $200 until they can transfer the bodies of their loved ones home.

At that cemetery, Youssef attended the burial of his relative, Itaf Abu Saleh, from Kafra, who died in her seventies for reasons unrelated to the war.

“The purpose of the temporary burial is attachment to the land,” Youssef said. “We want to bury her in her land, no matter how long it takes. The bodies will return, and so will we.”

He described the bitterness of burials away from home, saying that reburial renews loss. His family had gone through the experience in previous wars. “People believe they will return, like they had returned before,” he said. “That’s why they are not afraid of being unable to go back.”

“In a typical burial, the body is wrapped in a white cloth, but as a wadi‘a, it is placed in a wooden casket,” said Sheikh Kazim Chamas, who was attending a funeral in Choueifat. “Think of it as a mobile grave.” 

Temporary burial is generally not permitted in Islam, as exhuming the body before it has decomposed is believed to disturb the sanctity of the deceased and is therefore forbidden. Some Shia scholars, however, including the late Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, allowed it when necessary, according to Sheikh Chamas.

The practice of temporary burial connects to an older history within Shia Islam, reaching back to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein at Karbala. 

In the long war with Israel, the practice of provisional burial dates back to at least the 1980s, according to old members of Hezbollah. During the occupation, many parts of the South became inaccessible because of checkpoints, recurring strikes, and proximity to the front lines. Fighters who had requested to be buried in their villages after their martyrdom were interred elsewhere until such a return became possible.

This practice connects to an older history within Shia Islam, reaching back to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein at Karbala. The most widely accepted view holds that his severed head was taken to Damascus, where it remained for some time, before being returned to Karbala on the 20th of Safar — Imam Hussein’s Arb‘een (the fortieth day after his martyrdom) — to reunite with his body.

Fatima, 57, from Harouf, sat beside the grave of Hasan Mahmoud Kosaibany in Haret Saida. “He is the son of my neighbours,” she said. “I consider him my son.”

Like everyone else, she spoke of the difficulty of waiting. “We don’t have time to process our grief because of the war. Usually mourning lasts five days, but now it lasts until they are brought back to their land.”

Around her, families moved quietly between graves. Some brought flowers. Others stood in silence.

Unlike other cemeteries, Hasan Taher said, “these carry the expectation that the dead will leave.”