Palestinians in Gaza held a mass funeral on Tuesday for 112 people, whose bodies were finally recovered from under the rubble of homes destroyed in Israel's genocidal war on the enclave.
Thousands of Palestinians took part in the funeral in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood, where the bodies were draped in Palestinian flags and placed near the ruins of the destroyed homes, according to Anadolu Agency (AA).
The victims are set to be buried at the Baptist Cemetery in the Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, after the funeral procession.
The victims were members of the al-Hasayneh and Abu Sharia families, who were killed when the Israeli army bombed their homes while they were inside on Nov. 23, 2023.
Ahmed Abu Sharia, a member of the extended family of those being buried, told AFP the funeral would at last provide closure for relatives.
"We came to mourn our martyrs, children, women and the elderly," he said.
"This is a funeral for the Palestinian people, because they are victims. People are under the rubble, and they did not fight or bear weapons," he added.
The funeral is considered one of the largest in Palestinian history due to the high number of victims.
The bodies were retrieved from the rubble by civil defense teams on Saturday.
"The victims included 40 children, 38 women and seven people with disabilities," the Civil Defense said in a statement.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said 44 of the bodies recovered during two weeks in July were those of children, and all belonged to the same extended family.
"Our crews worked continuously for 17 days in an effort to recover these 112 bodies and remains from beneath the rubble," Mohammad Al-Mughayyir, director of operations for the civil defense said.
He added that teams often had to "dig through concrete and twisted steel with their bare hands".
"In some cases, complete skeletons remained intact, held together only by clothing."
Bassal said that more than 8,000 bodies are still trapped under Gaza's rubble.
The civil defense said that much of the recovery work was carried out thanks to two excavators rented out by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Pat Griffiths, the ICRC spokesman in Jerusalem, confirmed to AFP that his organization had hired "two of the only excavators available for this work in Gaza" from the territory's private sector to assist in the operation.
Gaza's civil defense and organizations such as ICRC have long complained that Israel, which controls all entry points into the Palestinian territory, has not allowed in enough construction tools and machinery to carry out body recoveries.
Near-daily Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire also continue to rock Gaza despite the cease-fire.
At least 1,252 Palestinians have been killed since the truce, according to the territory's health ministry.
At the mass funeral on Tuesday, one of the largest ever organized in Gaza, men lined up on the sand in silence for prayer.
The remains were laid out on stretchers and covered with flags. There were photos for the deceased who could be identified.
A member of the Al-Husayneh family, who are relatives of those to be buried, told AFP that he did not expect the remaining bodies to be found.
"The rest of the victims' bodies were vaporized, and their bones and flesh became mixed with the concrete rubble," said the man, who did not wish to share his name for security reasons.
"Why did Israel kill so many young children? There was nothing about them that could have justified targeting them."
The Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment – published in April by the World Bank, the EU and the U.N. – estimated that 68 million tons of rubble from destroyed or damaged buildings are spread across the Gaza Strip.
Over 60% of Gaza's population of 2.1 million lost their homes in the nearly three years since the war broke out, the report added.
Israel has killed more than 73,000 people and injured over 174,000 others in a brutal war in Gaza since October 2023.
Despite the cease-fire agreement in effect since Oct. 10, 2025, Israel has continued its attacks across the enclave, killing 1,250 Palestinians and injuring 4,110 others, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Palestinian authorities in Gaza estimate that around 9,500 people remain under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel across Gaza.
