Digging on his knees in the dirt as Saadi Baraka-gravedigger- tries to bury Gaza’s dead with dignity in a cemetery, says can no longer accommodate any more bodies.
The cemetery in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip has been expanded several times in recent months to accommodate the endless flow of bodies.
Baraka says he has buried 16,880 people since Israel launched its attack on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on October 7 – more than half of the 30,631 people reported killed by the Gaza Ministry of
Health. Israel estimates that about ten thousand of those killed were Hamas fighters.
“I come to the cemetery at 6 a.m. and stay until 6 p.m. to prepare graves for 30 or 40 people,” Baraka said. “I have built 167 mass graves.”
He said: “I’m trying to sleep, and I swear I can’t even if I took 2 kilos of sleeping pills.”
Baraka estimates that about 85% of those he buried were women and children. “They killed all the women. They were all killed because they were the ones who stayed in the house.”
He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is lying when he says that he is killing Hamas.”
As Baraka and his men work, they are surrounded by the hum of Israeli drones and the stench of death.
While many were killed by Israeli air strikes, which hit Gaza nearly five months ago, many more are now dying of hunger, according to the World Health Organization.
“Severe levels of malnutrition, children starving to death, serious shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies, and destroyed hospital buildings, during a recent visit to northern Gaza”, The WHO team said on Monday.
This warning came a few days after dozens of Palestinians were killed while trying to access food in Gaza City on Thursday. At least 118 people were killed and 760 others injured in an incident in which IDF forces used live ammunition while hungry and desperate Palestinian civilians gathered around food aid trucks, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
After the incident, the United States, for the first time, dropped humanitarian aid into Gaza. More than 38,000 meals were dropped Saturday along the Gaza coast in a joint operation carried out by the US Air Force and the Royal Jordanian Air Force. Another 36,800 were shot down Tuesday, according to US Central Command.
“We don’t want them dropping fast food off planes. They’re showing off,” But Baraka rejected the operations and described them as a political ploy.
Baraka said he has worked in Israel for 28 years and wants to live to see an end to generations of violence.
He added that he supports the solution of “two states for two peoples living together in love,” but warned that Israel’s attempt to “destroy” Hamas will not achieve this.
