Funeral procession carries 100 Gazans to final rest as Al-Zeitoun families bid farewell

Palestinians attend the mass funeral for members of the Irahem, Malaka, Qanbour, Balawi and Dahdouh families, who were killed in an Israeli strike in 2023 and whose remains were recovered from beneath the rubble, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence, in Gaza City, yesterday. (Reuters)

Residents of Gaza City’s Al-Zeitoun neighbourhood buried the bodies of 100 Palestinians yesterday at the Martyrs Cemetery near Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, southeast of the city.

Palestinian sources reported that the vast majority of them were children and women, noting that the bodies were dug out from beneath several bombed-out buildings belonging to the Malka, Irheim, Al-Balaawi and Salmi families.

The funeral procession set out from in front of Imam Al-Shafi’i Mosque in the Al-Zeitoun neighbourhood, with hundreds of Gazans, including relatives of the martyrs and families from the neighbourhood, taking part after bidding a final farewell to them, whose bodies were wrapped in the Palestinian flag.

The mourners headed to the cemetery, where collective graves were prepared and the bodies were laid to rest.

In collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), local crews recovered the bodies after deploying the required equipment to remove the rubble from homes destroyed over their residents during Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip.