Gaza Mourners Bury Remains of 100 Victims Recovered From Rubble in Zeitoun

Mourners gathered around the flag-draped bodies of Palestinians whose remains were recently recovered from the rubble after they were killed in Israeli strikes during the war on Gaza, in Gaza City. Palestinians in northern Gaza held funeral ceremonies for about 100 people, including 60 children, whose remains were recovered from the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.

The remains were carried on Sunday by family members from Zeitoun to al-Ma’madani cemetery in central Gaza City for burial, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent at the scene, Ghazi al-Aloul. Civil defence crews and family members had spent weeks digging through the ruins of homes hit during the war against Palestinians in Gaza, which began in October 2023. Many of the victims were part of the extended Malaka family, which alone lost 55 members.

Al-Aloul reported that families had waited a long time to be able to bury their loved ones in proper cemeteries. He noted that the chance to bury the remains of family members was not available to every family, as Israeli forces had destroyed and dug up cemeteries elsewhere in Gaza during the conflict.

According to al-Aloul, the recovered remains were often only fragments wrapped in shrouds resembling intact bodies. Raed al-Dahshan, head of Gaza’s civil defence service, told Al Jazeera that his teams had formulated plans to recover thousands more missing bodies, but the work was hindered by a severe shortage of heavy machinery and protective equipment.

Dahshan stated that retrieving an estimated 8,000 bodies still believed to be under the rubble could take about 90 days with proper equipment, but without it, the work would continue for years. Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territories, emphasised the brutality of the conflict and the urgent need to preserve evidence and ensure accountability.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 73,651 Palestinians have been killed and 174,592 wounded since October 2023. Similar recovery operations have recently retrieved hundreds of bodies from various sites across Gaza.