Gaza Held One Of Its Largest Funerals For 112 Palestinians Recovered Nearly Three Years After Israel Killed Them
Thousands of Palestinians joined a funeral procession through Gaza City's streets, carrying the bodies on stretchers to a cemetery.
Palestinians in Gaza held one of the largest funerals in Palestinian history for 112 Palestinians whose bodies were recovered from under the rubble nearly three years after an Israeli strike killed them.
On Nov. 22, 2023, Israeli warplanes flattened an entire residential block in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood, killing more than 308 people from the Hassayna and Abu Sharia families.
About 40 bodies were pulled out from under the rubble in the days after, according to AP.
But most of the dead were buried too deep beneath the collapsed buildings to reach.
For nearly three years, the rest of the bodies remained under the rubble as the war continued and Gaza's civil defense lacked the heavy machinery and access needed to dig deeper.
Recovery work at the site resumed recently, and rescue teams dug through the wreckage for 136 hours straight to recover the bodies, according to Gaza's civil defense.
They recovered 112 bodies, including 40 children, 30 women and seven people with disabilities.
The civil defense said another 157 people are still believed to be missing under the rubble.
On Tuesday, Aug. 4, the recovered bodies, wrapped in Palestinian flags, were laid out in rows near the ruins of the destroyed homes so families could identify and mourn them.
Thousands of Palestinians then joined a funeral procession through Gaza City's streets, carrying the bodies on stretchers to a cemetery in the nearby Zeitoun neighborhood for burial.
Palestinians said it is one of the largest funerals in their history.
"I'm the sole survivor of my family," Yousef Abu Sharia told the BBC. "Today, I'm talking to you [as] the one who lost my mother, my father, my uncle and my cousins and all my family. I lost them under this rubble."
"I think this is a feeling that was supposed [to be felt], a feeling of pain, grief and loss," one mourner said. "After we managed to retrieve them and bury them, perhaps we can be partially relieved despite the pain of loss and all we're still living through."
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 73,377 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 2,700 Palestinian families that have been completely wiped out and removed from the civil registry, while thousands of Palestinians remain unaccounted for.
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