Photos: Palestinians mourn more than 100 loved ones in mass Gaza funeral

What the report says

Palestinians in Gaza held a mass funeral and burial on Thursday for the remains of 105 people recovered from rubble after Israeli air strikes in Gaza City’s Yarmouk Square area. According to Al Jazeera’s report, the dead were killed in strikes on October 25, 2023, when at least 20 bombs hit the seven-storey Al Taj 3 building and other nearby residential blocks.

The remains were carried through Gaza City in a large procession before burial at Sheikh Radwan cemetery, northwest of the city. Civil defence operations director Abdul al-Majdalawi said it had been impossible to reach the bodies at the time of the attack. Al Jazeera, citing correspondent Ibrahim al-Khalili, said the recovery effort was the fifth-largest of its kind since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, measured by the number of bodies recovered.

The funeral underscores the scale and long tail of destruction from the early months of the conflict, when many victims could not be immediately recovered from collapsed buildings. More than two years later, families were able to hold a public burial for loved ones whose remains had remained under the debris for an extended period. The scene also reflects the continuing humanitarian and forensic challenges in Gaza as authorities and rescue teams work through sites damaged in earlier strikes.