Gaza City: Hundreds of Palestinians gathered on Thursday in Gaza City to bury 105 people whose remains were pulled from the rubble of homes destroyed in Israeli airstrikes during the early weeks of the war.
Families recited funeral prayers before carrying the dead to the Martyrs Cemetery in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of northwestern Gaza City. Many of the mourners had waited nearly three years to give their loved ones a proper burial, reported by Arab News.
The bodies were recovered from 16 residential buildings in the Al-Taj area of the Al-Yarmouk district, according to Gaza’s civil defense teams and the Palestinian news agency WAFA. The buildings, which contained 138 apartments, were struck on October 25, 2023, shortly after Israel began its military campaign in the enclave. Local authorities told WAFA that the attack killed around 450 Palestinians, including children, women and older adults.
Of the 105 bodies recovered, 37 were children and 38 were women. Civil defense workers say many more victims are still buried under the debris.
Recovery efforts began about 20 days ago, carried out by local civil defense teams with support from Egyptian technical personnel and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Mamdouh Atallah, who attended the funeral, told WAFA that the operation had been slow and difficult because of the scale of destruction.
A day before the burial, relatives held a farewell ceremony at the site in Al-Yarmouk. They lit candles and mourned family members whose remains had only recently been found.
Across the Gaza Strip, more than 8,000 bodies are believed to remain trapped beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings, according to the civil defense. For many families, the recovery of remains offers a measure of closure, even as the war’s toll continues to rise and the task of clearing the ruins stretches into years.
