No space left for bodies: Gaza’s cemeteries overflow as the death toll Rises above 40,000
The current military campaign of the Israelis against the Gaza Strip has made 40,000 plus people die, and the problem has become acute and grave, with the burial grounds complete and surviving families burying their dear ones.
Palestinians are struggling to secure open land for construction, with pressures increasing even for unused land, mainly in the central part of the Gaza Strip, as the situation intensifies.
The death of seven Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip as the result of their attempts to sneak into Israel underlines the unprecedented situation that Saad Hassan Barakat, a cemetery worker in Gaza City, described to Anadolu. After a career that saw him work for many years at various cemeteries, Barakat said he had never seen something like this.
‘Before the war, as much as I could manage between three and five burials in a day,’ Barakat said. But since the Israel-Hamas conflict that began October 7 last year, there are days that I buried 70, 80, hundred or even 300 people.
He said that, due to dire space constraints, he has resorted to burying the bodies in tiers. ‘The problem is that there is no place to open and bury the new graves, so I have burrowed new graves above the old ones the Yemeni man pointed at. ”This place, you know, is not one, no, nor two, but three layers of graves. ”
Barakat, who held tenures of management of nine cemeteries, has been reduced to the usage of only two cemeteries because of the constant bombings. We could only wait helplessly as he went on to say: ‘The bombardment remains continuous day and night. ’
Barakat said the mass grave option is still free of charge. However, those wishing to be buried in an individual grave must pay approximately 300 shekels ($80).
Palestinian Mohammed Abdullah from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza thought that the ability to bury the deceased has been increasingly becoming a herculean task considering the continuous Israeli military aggression.
“The number of martyrs is astonishing and horrifyingly on the rise,” Abdullah said. ‘Even in the smallest massacre, we lose 10 or 20 people. ’ The three cemeteries in the central region of Gaza are all complete.
Abdullah singled out a burial attempt that was conducted with eight decomposing corpses. The bodies pulled out from the earlier burials. Today, not only graves exhuming people’s remains but the remains of residents who lost their homes to protracted conflicts.
Speaking about the situation, Mudenda said there is no space to open new graves because many displaced people have taken refuge in cemeteries. ” But when it comes to the living dead, they are the priority.
The two attacks brought human bodies for burial, said Abdullah, adding that the attacks were horrific and were becoming rampant.
Four days after the Palestinian resistance group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 subsequently, Palestine has been suffering from continual attacks by Israel on the Gaza Strip, including after the UN Security Council resolution on the ceasefire.
As of December 2017, more than 40,170 Palestinians, mainly women and children, have been killed, and more than 92,740 injured, according to the local health ministry.
The humanitarian situation has worsened over time due to a blockade of Gaza, resulting in scarcity of food, water, and medicine, besides the region being in ruinage.
The United Nations judges removed its gag from its lips where before, it could only express itself in the language of veto and accuse Israel of genocide. In its latest ruling, the high court has called for a ceasefire in the southern town of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge before it was invaded on May 6.
