The decomposed remains of 112 individuals were laid out on stretchers and covered with flags on a flattened lot of demolished buildings in Gaza as neighbors and survivors gathered to mourn relatives from the Al-Hassayna clan.
Palestinian authorities say the extended family - also known as the Abu Sharia - suffered heavy losses when Israeli airstrikes on November 22, 2023 caused a cluster of apartment buildings to collapse in Sabra, an old neighbourhood of Gaza City. According to those authorities, 308 members of the extended family were killed in the incident when residents were sleeping. Around half of the victims had previously been recovered and buried, but 153 remained trapped under the rubble until the recent operation.
A specialized recovery team of 40 workers spent 17 days methodically searching through the wreckage and retrieved remains that they identified as belonging to 112 of those who had been missing, officials said. The recovered remains were arranged on stretchers under the sun before a funeral procession moved through streets lined with devastated buildings.
Men lifted the stretchers and carried them to a large burial site amid ruins, while another sign carried portraits of the dead - men, women and children. For many attending, the graves provided a long-delayed opportunity to bury loved ones.
"This day is mixed with grief, and it has reopened our wounds three years after this massacre," said Taysir Al-Hassayna, a surviving member of the clan. "It has brought sorrow back to our children and women. But our consolation is that we believe they are martyrs with God."
Survivors in exile watched the funeral from afar. Omar Al-Hassayna, 65, who escaped to Egypt days after the strike, viewed footage of the procession on satellite television in Cairo and wept as he recalled family members lost in the collapse. His wife and four adult sons - Abdallah, Abdel-Rahman, Ahmed and Osama - were killed, along with four grandchildren, two boys and two girls, whose ages ranged from a few months to four years.
"They are pieces of me. I have thought about them every single day. I have seen them in my thoughts and in my dreams," he said. "The funeral today is the least that could be done for those martyrs. It is time for those bodies, those little bodies, to rest in peace, and for their souls to hover in the skies around us."
Entire extended families frequently lived together in clusters of residential buildings in Gaza, where many residents are descendants of refugees who settled in the enclave. That living pattern meant that when residential towers and apartment blocks were struck in the early weeks of the war, entire branches of families could be killed at once.
The Al-Hassaynas had lived in Sabra for decades and were described by survivors as a longstanding part of the local community. Survivors said Israeli strikes hit three residential buildings where members of the extended family had gathered for shelter during the early days of the war. Two of those buildings were completely destroyed, killing almost everyone inside, while a third was partially destroyed. Omar was inside the third building and survived with minor injuries caused by debris. Two daughters and a son of his also survived.
Efforts to recover bodies across Gaza are constrained by areas under Israeli control. An October ceasefire that halted major fighting left Israeli forces in control of more than half of Gaza; officials say that control has since expanded to cover about two-thirds of the territory. Those areas have seen bulldozing of remaining buildings and orders for people to evacuate.
Recovery work can only proceed in the remaining portion of Gaza where almost all of the territory's more than two million residents now live, often displaced into tents or makeshift shelters amid heavily damaged buildings. Officials say most bodies were documented when they were brought to morgues and buried, but around 8,000 people are still believed to lie under rubble.
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for Gaza's Civil Defence, said identification of the Al-Hassayna remains required a mix of forensic analysis and information provided by survivors.
"The bodies were decomposed. Relatives identified some through their clothes, injuries and distinguishing marks. Some victims had bone fixation plates on some organs, while some women were identified through jewellery they had on or necklaces bearing their names," Basal said. With the operation now concluded in that sector, the recovery team will move on to other accessible areas.
Basal added that additional heavy machinery would speed further recoveries. "If we had at least 10 excavators, bulldozers, excavators, and cranes needed for the work, the job could be completed in three months," he said.
When the procession reached the graveyard, men took the small, shrouded bodies and laid them in newly dug graves among the ruins. For the community, the burials marked a painful step in a long process of accounting for the losses suffered nearly three years earlier.
Palestinian health authorities report that more than 73,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in the Israeli war in Gaza. The authorities say the majority of those deaths were recorded when bodies were brought to morgues and buried, while thousands more remain under collapsed structures across the territory.
With the recovery operation concluded in this site, responders said they would continue to search other accessible areas where remains have not yet been retrieved. The identification work carried out in Sabra combined survivor testimony with forensic markers to accept the recovered remains as belonging to members of the Al-Hassayna family.
The funeral brought a cluster of neighbours and surviving clan members together on the lot of demolished ruins to lay the recovered dead to rest. For those present, the collective burial was both an act of mourning and a formal recognition of loss that had remained unresolved since the buildings fell on November 22, 2023.