Huge crowds gathered at a mass funeral in Gaza on Tuesday for more than 100 people killed in a deadly Israeli strike in 2023 – one of the war’s deadliest attacks.
The 112 victims, mostly women and children, were among more than 300 killed when Israeli warplanes flattened a residential block in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City on November 22, 2023.
The block belonged to the Hassayna and Abu Sharia families, and many victims who lived there were related.
Forty bodies were recovered at the time, but most were buried deep under the rubble.
Over the weekend, first responders retrieved the remains of a further 112 victims after digging through destroyed buildings, said the Civil Defence, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government.
It said 157 bodies still have not been found.
“The only crime of these martyrs was that they remained steadfast and resilient in their homes, believing that these homes would protect them,” Taysir al-Hassayna, a relative of a victim, told The Associated Press.
It is only now that bodies from a strike more than two and a half years ago are slowly being found.
A fragile ceasefire took effect in October last year, allowing recovery efforts to push ahead.
Around 1,200 people were killed, and 251 were taken hostage in the Hamas-led militant attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 73,377 Palestinians, including since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Hamas-run 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 the Associated Press.
He said the true number is likely thousands higher because in some cases entire families were killed in a single bombing, leaving no one to report the missing.
Hundreds of people surrounded the bodies for funeral prayers at the mass funeral on Tuesday, some standing on the rubble.
The remains of victims were wrapped in Palestinian flags and laid in rows, marked with photos and scattered with flower petals.
After prayers, the bodies were carried on stretchers along a narrow street lined with what was left of buildings destroyed in the war, before being buried in a local cemetery.
The Associated Press, ITV News’ US partner, has identified at least 60 families across Gaza who lost 25 or more family members during the first three months of war.
Although fighting has decreased since the ceasefire, at least 1,252 people have been killed in Gaza since it took effect, according to its health ministry.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children make up most of the dead.
Israel says its strikes are against militants who endanger its soldiers, took part in the October 7 attack or carry out other violations.
Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.
In Gaza, most of the two million Palestinians are displaced, and many are living in camps with overcrowding, rodent infestations and outbreaks of disease like chickenpox.
Each side has accused the other of violating the ceasefire, and negotiations on further steps have largely stalled.
Despite agreements to disarm, Hamas has held onto its weapons, and the Israeli military has refused to withdraw and controls over half the territory.
Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace official overseeing Gaza’s postwar transition, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss a new disarmament deal the US-created board has reached with Hamas.
Last week, President Donald Trump announced an agreement that calls for Israel to cease its military operations in Gaza and for Hamas and its allies there to halt all militant activity.
After details of the agreement were released, Israel said it had “serious security concerns”.
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