Gaza city: Palestinians held a funeral procession on Sunday for 100 people, including 60 children, who were recovered from the rubble of destroyed homes in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood amid Israel's war on the enclave. Thousands of Palestinians, including relatives of the victims as well as community and political figures, attended the procession. The bodies and remains were laid out near the ruins of the destroyed homes, draped in Palestinian flags.
According to Anadolu Agency, the funeral included memorial addresses by Gaza's Civil Defense, whose teams carried out the recovery operations, as well as representatives of the victims' families and community figures. The bodies and remains were expected to be buried at Al-Ahli cemetery in the Zeitoun neighborhood after funeral prayers. Civil Defense teams recovered the victims in recent days as part of the second phase of a project launched on July 19 to retrieve Palestinians still buried beneath the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Israeli war.
The victims belonged to the Rahim, Balawi, Malaka, Qanbour, and Salmi families and were killed when Israeli forces struck several residential homes around two and a half years ago, according to local authorities. Recovery efforts are being carried out with limited resources, including only a small number of excavators and deteriorating equipment, due to Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy machinery and equipment needed to search the rubble.
The funeral was marked by painful scenes as victims' relatives finally mourned loved ones whom they had been unable to bid farewell since they were killed beneath the rubble. Mahmoud Murtaja, who lost his nine-month-pregnant wife and 3-year-old daughter, shared his grief, saying their recovery 'reopened the wound' because he had been unable to take one last look at them or embrace the child whose birth he had been awaiting.
Gaza Municipal Council member Mustafa Quzaat highlighted the ongoing suffering of victims who had remained beneath the rubble for over two and a half years, including children, women, and older people. He noted that similar scenes could be repeated if necessary resources remain unavailable, emphasizing the war had erased entire families from the civil registry.
Raed al-Dahshan, director of civil defense in Gaza City, described the recovery operations as 'extremely grueling and difficult' due to the destruction scale and equipment shortage. He noted that around 60 children were among the victims whose bodies and remains were recovered, with the lack of equipment being the main obstacle to accelerating search and recovery operations.
Sunday's ceremony is among the largest funerals in Palestinian history in terms of the number of bodies and remains being buried, according to an Anadolu tally. A similar funeral was held in early August for 112 Palestinians recovered from the rubble of homes in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood. The second phase of the recovery project involves 800 hours of work at 147 destroyed homes across Gaza City and the northern and central parts of the enclave, where 1,072 bodies are believed to remain buried.
The first phase began in late November 2025 and involved 500 hours of work. Civil Defense teams recovered around 333 bodies and remains out of an estimated 559 missing beneath the rubble of 54 homes and buildings. Under the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, in effect since Oct. 10, 2025, Israel was expected to allow the entry of heavy machinery and equipment needed for recovery operations, according to Palestinian authorities in the enclave. The ceasefire followed nearly two years of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and injured over 174,000, while destroying or damaging much of the enclave's civilian infrastructure.