Disrupted Funerals and the Toll of War: The Struggle to Honor the Dead in Gaza

Omar Dirawi, standing amidst a field of body bags and blanket-wrapped corpses, uttered that this was neither the appropriate venue nor occasion for dignified farewells. The constant barrage of Israeli airstrikes, now into their third week, added to the desolation, wiping out entire neighborhoods and ripping apart numerous families and social bonds.

This grim scene unfolded in the central town of Zawaideh in Gaza, where Dirawi, a 22-year-old Palestinian photojournalist, had just laid to rest 32 of his family members, all victims of Israeli aerial assaults the previous Sunday.

Having relocated from Gaza City to take refuge in Dirawi’s residence further south, obeying Israeli military evacuation directives, his relatives met a tragic fate. Dirawi found himself hurriedly unloading their remains from a truck, hastily digging a shallow, cinderblock-divided trench, and mumbling abbreviated funeral prayers before dusk, just as Israeli aircraft roared overhead forcing everyone to seek shelter indoors.

“This mass interment is agonizingly wrong,” expressed Dirawi. “There’s not been a moment for mourning, but I was left with no alternatives. The cemeteries are already congested.”

Amidst their devastating losses, Palestinians claim that this conflict is stealing more than lives; it is also stripping them of the funeral rituals which traditionally provide a modicum of dignity and closure during intense sorrow. The rapid accumulation of casualties has overwhelmed the capacity of hospitals and mortuaries, rendering the usual death rites nearly impracticable.

Adding to their manifold miseries, Gazans reported last Saturday the loss of mobile and internet services, further isolating them and making it impossible to call for medical aid or even confirm the survival status of separated family members.

According to the Gaza-based Health Ministry, since the commencement of the conflict on October 7—triggered by a brutal and unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel—Israeli retaliatory actions have resulted in over 7,700 Palestinian deaths, nearly 300 of whom remain unidentified. The sense of dread intensified last Saturday as Israel augmented its ground operations and escalated its aerial bombardment.

An estimated 1,700 individuals are currently buried beneath ruins, impeding the efforts of rescue workers, one of whom was fatally wounded last Friday. Oftentimes, it takes several days for medics to retrieve bodies, which by then may be unrecognizable due to decay.

“The entire system here is inundated,” said Inas Hamdan, a communications officer for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency based in Gaza. “People are coping with the mounting deaths as best as they can.”

The scarcity of burial space has led some to exhume ancient graves to deepen them, allowing for new internments. Such was the case for Bilal al-Hour, a university professor, and 25 other members of his family who perished last Friday during aerial bombardments in Deir al-Balah.

Families have resorted to desperate measures to avoid the horror of anonymity in death, such as wearing identification bracelets or writing names and IDs on the limbs of their children. In some cases, corpses decompose beyond recognition, while in others, no surviving family members remain to claim the deceased.

Religious authorities have now sanctioned rushed burials and the excavation of communal graves, given the rapidly escalating death toll and limited space.

Khalid Abdou, a resident of the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp, lamented the absence of traditional Islamic funeral customs. “There’s just no time or space,” he said. “All we can manage is to dig a large pit and place the bodies within.”

As the conflict rages on, the deep-rooted traditions intended to bring comfort and closure to the grieving are becoming yet another casualty of war, lost amidst the chaos and destruction that has enveloped the region.

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Reported from Jerusalem by DeBre.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about funeral rites in Gaza

More about funeral rites in Gaza

• Understanding Palestinian Funeral Traditions
• The Psychological Impact of War on Civilians
• The Current Situation in Gaza: A Timeline
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Recent Developments
• The Role of Religious Authorities in Crisis Situations
• The Importance of Funeral Rites in Different Cultures
• The Legal and Ethical Implications of Mass Graves in Conflict Zones
• UN Reports on Civilian Casualties in Gaza
• Emergency Response Protocols in Gaza