Even the dead are not spared in the war raging in the Gaza Strip, with bodies dug up by Israeli soldiers and hasty burials in hospitals and even a school.
In the Tuffah district of Gaza City, the shrouded corpses of Palestinians pulled from their graves lie on muddy ground.
The desecration is part of a process that, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs in the Hamas-controlled strip, has seen more than 2,000 graves damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces across the territory.
The Israeli military has stated that it “in no way targets cemeteries as such and has no policy to damage or desecrate cemeteries.”
But it also adds that “specific cemeteries or graves, like other civilian sites or structures, may be damaged” during war.
In response to allegations that soldiers pulled bodies from graves, the army told the AFP news agency that it was acting “in specific locations where information indicates the bodies of hostages may be found.” .
“The bodies determined not to be those of hostages are returned with dignity and respect,” he said in a statement.
The current conflict erupted following the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel, in which around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
Hamas also captured some 250 people. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 people.
Israel’s relentless military offensive has killed at least 26,637 people in Gaza, most of them women and children.
“Their souls trembled”
At a school full of displaced people in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, Saida Jaber remembers seeing images on social media of the destroyed cemetery at the Jabalia refugee camp.
“I felt like my heart was going to stop,” Saida said, adding that her father, grandparents and other family members were buried at the site in northern Gaza.
“I felt their souls were trembling… I can’t imagine how anyone dares to dig graves and violate the sanctity of the dead,” Saida said.
As the fighting continues, many Palestinians in Gaza have been unable to reach cemeteries and have instead turned to makeshift cemeteries.
At a school-turned-shelter in the central Maghazi refugee camp, a woman touched the sandy earth where her daughter had been buried in the courtyard.
“My daughter died in my arms… we waited day and night and we couldn’t send her to the emergency room,” said the woman, who did not give her name.
She said missiles hit the school compound and ignited gas canisters, causing deadly explosions.
A man who looked after the site said more than 50 people were buried there, each grave containing three or four bodies, their names written either on bricks or on the adjacent wall.
“To die of sorrow”
The death toll is so high that victims of Israeli attacks have been buried in mass graves across Gaza.
Rows of bodies were buried in the grounds of al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest, where people separated the graves with stones and plant branches.
“If we went to the cemetery, they (Israeli forces) could bomb us and we would die,” said Arfan Dadar, 46, living in a tent with his family on the hospital grounds.
Dadar said Israeli soldiers shot and killed his 22-year-old son as he returned to a hospital in Gaza City.
“I marked his grave, (but) now the hospital grounds are full of mass graves. I barely recognize my son’s grave,” he said.
Palestinians in Gaza have said they hope to be able to move their dead once the war ends.
Wael Dahdouh, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Gaza bureau chief, said he had ‘no choice’ but to bury his son in a crowded cemetery in southern Rafah after the young journalist was killed in an Israeli attack.
“We will transfer him to the Gaza Martyrs’ Cemetery after the war ends. We want his grave to be close to us so we can visit him and pray for him,” Dahdouh said.
Jaber said she was looking forward to returning to Jabalia to check on the graves of her loved ones. “I would die of grief if they were taken away too.”
