The Ministry of Health announced that 75 Palestinians were laid to rest in a mass funeral on Sunday morning. Their remains had recently been pulled from the ruins of homes and buildings wrecked in the months since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.
Hundreds of people joined the procession before the remains were buried at Sheikh Radwan Cemetery.
Victims mostly from Daraj neighbourhood
Most of the dead came from the Daraj neighbourhood in northeastern Gaza City. Correspondent Nour Khaled said most of the remains belonged to women and children, describing them as people “who were inside their homes when they were targeted”.
According to her, the remains included body parts and personal belongings, and they were wrapped in Palestinian flags before burial.
Civil Defence recovery work hampered by shortages
Abdullah al-Majdalawi, director of public relations and media for Gaza’s Civil Defence, told a Turkish state news agency that the remains were gathered over recent weeks from several destroyed homes in Daraj. He said the buildings were bombed in the early months of the war while residents were inside, and that the dead belonged to about 20 Palestinian families, some of whom had been displaced into those homes.
He added that efforts to retrieve bodies from under the rubble still face severe difficulties because of a lack of equipment and heavy machinery. The Civil Defence began the second phase of its recovery operations in July.
Thousands still feared trapped across Gaza
During its first operation in November 2025, the Civil Defence recovered 333 bodies and the remains of 559 people. It believes the remains of another 8,000 Palestinians are still trapped beneath rubble across Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says about 200,000 buildings in Gaza are damaged or destroyed. At least 74,475 Palestinians have been killed since the war began three years ago.
