Random graves in the Gaza Strip raise health concerns among residents, many of whom express their fear of the spread of epidemics in residential areas and shelter centers in the northern Gaza Strip, after many of them now live next to graves in which their relatives who were martyred as a result of the Israeli aggression are buried.
Many residents of the Gaza Strip have warned that these graves are not being dug according to the required legal or health principles, which warns of the imminent spread of epidemics among the population because of them.
Living among the graves and the dead also poses a challenge to the residents, who describe their living conditions near it as a great tragedy, and express their hope for a near end to the war that has been ongoing in the Gaza Strip for about 4 months.
People in all governorates of the Gaza Strip have resorted to constructing random mass and individual graves, in residential neighborhoods, courtyards, roads, wedding halls, and sports stadiums, since the beginning of the war launched by Israel against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. This is due to the impossibility of accessing the Gaza Strip’s cemeteries; Due to the war conditions, the deployment of the army on the roads, the massive destruction of infrastructure, as well as the repeated targeting of citizens.
In addition to the above, the Israeli occupation army targeted cemeteries in the areas where its military vehicles penetrated, as it bulldozed many of them and exhumed their graves.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory documented more than 120 random mass graves in the governorates of the Gaza Strip to bury the martyrs who fell during this war, the death toll of which the Palestinian authorities indicate amounted to 25,490 martyrs and 63,354 injured, most of them children and women.
A major tragedy
Citizen Raed Dhaifullah said that digging random individual and collective graves to bury martyrs has become a common thing in central and northern Gaza. He explains that burying the bodies of martyrs in residential neighbourhoods, shelter centers and public streets is due to the impossibility of burying them in cemeteries, which residents have become afraid to go to, for fear of being targeted by bullets from the occupying army.
He said, “Today we cannot bury the dead in cemeteries. The place is surrounded by bombing and destruction, in addition to the army bulldozing graves and the remains of the dead. The situation here is harsh.”
He explained that there is no safe place or area in the Gaza and North governorates, as the occupation army targets everyone. Children, women and the elderly.
He said that living among the graves is a great tragedy, expressing his hopes for reaching a ceasefire, rebuilding the destroyed homes and returning to them soon.
“There is no life here”
In turn, Soha Naseer (36 years old), while sitting next to her father’s grave in the “Happy Yemen” Hospital in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, said, “My father was sitting in the school (the shelter center) when an Israeli missile fell on him, killing him as a martyr.”
She explained while trying to hold back her tears, “My father was displaced from the town of Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip to the shelter center, and they pursued him in the place that was supposed to be safe and killed him there.”
Suha said that her family could not find a place to bury him except this place inside the hospital, due to the inaccessibility of the cemeteries due to the repeated targeting of citizens.
Regarding life in the north, she said, “There is no life here, especially with the lack of any food, drink, or warm or safe place. We are also dead, but we are trying to console ourselves to survive.”
Epidemic outbreaks
In Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, displaced people expressed their fear of the spread of epidemics in the place, as a result of the martyrs being buried randomly and without health standards.
They explained in an interview with Anadolu Agency that the health and living conditions are very poor, and there is a fear that the conditions will deteriorate when the bodies buried in the hospital decompose.
They said that the place emits foul odors, in light of the scarcity of water needed for cleaning, in addition to the lack of personal hygiene supplies.
They pointed out that the possibility of the spread of epidemics is likely, in light of the presence of the bodies of martyrs still under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
In addition, the lack of proper food causes weak immunity and exacerbates the risk of diseases and epidemics.
The World Health Organization and other international institutions have warned many times of the possibility of epidemics spreading in various areas of the besieged Strip, as the Israeli war continues and the access of humanitarian aid and health supplies is restricted.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) had previously warned that “intestinal diseases in Gaza have spread at a rate 4 times higher than before, and skin diseases 3 times higher.”
The UN agency confirmed the existence of reports of the spread of hepatitis in the Strip, in addition to the outbreak of other epidemics. Such as: cholera.