Palestinians hold mass funeral for 112 bodies finally recovered from a 2023 Gaza strike

Deir Al-Balah, Gaza City — Palestinians gathered on Tuesday for a mass funeral of more than 100 bodies finally recovered from a deadly Israeli strike inGazain 2023. More than 300 people were killed on November 22, 2023, weeks into the war withHamas, when warplanes flattened a residential block in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood. Around 40 bodies were recovered soon afterward in a frantic scramble of rough tools and bare hands, but most were buried deep beneath the rubble.

Reports of the high number of victims in one of the war’s deadliest attacks took days to reach the public in the chaos just before its first ceasefire. Over the weekend, first responders dug through the destroyed buildings and recovered remains of 112 victims, including 40 children, according to the Civil Defence, a rescue agency operating under the Hamas-run interior ministry. “The only crime of these martyrs was that they remained steadfast and resilient in their homes.” — Taysir al-Hassayna, a relative of some of the deceased “The only crime of these martyrs was that they remained steadfast and resilient in their homes, believing that these homes would protect them,” one relative, Taysir al-Hassayna, told Associated Press following the funeral prayers.

For the missing, it’s “as if their bodies had evaporated without a trace”. Only now are some bodies of people killed in the war’s ferocious early months slowly being recovered, as a fragile ceasefire that took effect in October allows such efforts to push ahead in parts of devastated Gaza. Those discoveries have contributed to the war’s rising toll.

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The Hamas-led militant attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 73,377 Palestinians, including since the ceasefire, Gaza’s health ministry said. At least 7,400 people have been reported by relatives to still be under the rubble, Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s records department, told AP.

The true number is likely to be thousands higher because in some cases entire families were killed in a single bombing, leaving no one to report the missing, al-Waheidi has said. The people mourned on Tuesday were from a residential block belonging to the Hassayna and Abu Sharia clan, and many were related. Associated Press has identified at least 60 families across Gaza who lost 25 or more family members during the first three months of war.

On Tuesday, the remains of the victims, wrapped in Palestinian flags, were laid in rows on the ground. Many were marked with photos, and flower petals were scattered around all. Hundreds of people surrounded the bodies for funeral prayers, some standing on the rubble.

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