Gaza mass funeral held for 112 bodies recovered from 2023 Sabra strike

Deiral-balah,UPDATED: Aug 4, 2026 19:40 IST

Palestinians in Gaza held a mass funeral on Tuesday for more than 100 bodies recovered nearly two years after a deadly Israeli strike on a residential block in Gaza City. The attack on November 22, 2023, flattened a block in the Sabra neighbourhood weeks into the war with Hamas and killed more than 300 people, making it one of the deadliest strikes of the war.

The bodies were recovered over the weekend as the current ceasefire, which took effect in October, allowed first responders to continue digging through devastated parts of Gaza. The Civil Defence, a rescue agency operating under the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, said 112 remains were found, including those of 40 children, while 157 bodies are still missing.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2023 strike, around 40 bodies were pulled out in a frantic search using rough tools and bare hands, but most victims remained buried deep under the rubble. Reports of the large number of casualties took days to emerge at the time, amid the chaos before the first ceasefire of the war.

"The only crime of these martyrs was that they remained steadfast and resilient in their homes, believing that these homes would protect them," one relative, Taysir al-Hassayna, told The Associated Press after the funeral prayers. Referring to those still missing, he said it was "as if their bodies had evaporated without a trace".

The people mourned on Tuesday were from a residential block belonging to the Hassayna and Abu Sharia clan, and many of them were related. The Associated Press has identified at least 60 families across Gaza that lost 25 or more members in the first three months of the war. On Tuesday, the recovered remains, wrapped in Palestinian flags, were laid out in rows on the ground. Many were marked with photographs, flower petals were scattered over them, and hundreds gathered for funeral prayers, with some standing on the rubble. After the prayers, the bodies were carried on stretchers along a narrow street lined with destroyed buildings and buried in a nearby cemetery.

The continued recovery of remains has added to the war's rising death toll. The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 73,377 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry's records department, told the AP that at least 7,400 people have been reported by relatives as still trapped under the rubble. He said the true number was likely thousands higher because entire families were sometimes killed in a single bombing, leaving no one behind to report the missing.

Although the ceasefire halted much of the fighting, Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 1,252 people have been killed in the territory since it took effect. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says women and children make up most of the dead. Israel says its strikes target militants who endanger its soldiers, took part in the October 7 attack or carry out other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.

Gaza remains largely in ruins, with most of its 2 million people displaced. Many are living in tent camps where overcrowding and poor conditions have led to rodent infestations and outbreaks of infectious diseases such as chickenpox. Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, and talks on the next steps have largely stalled. Hamas has kept its weapons despite agreements to disarm, while the Israeli military has not withdrawn and continues to control more than half the territory. On Monday, Board of Peace official Nikolay Mladenov met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in part to discuss a new disarmament deal that the US-created board has reached with Hamas. Last week, President Donald Trump announced an agreement calling on Israel to stop its military operations in Gaza and on Hamas and allied groups to halt all militant activity, but Israel later said it had "serious security concerns" about the deal.

Tuesday's funeral brought together families still waiting for loved ones to be found, while underlining both the scale of the November 2023 strike in Sabra and the wider devastation that continues across Gaza even during the ceasefire.

With PTI Inputs

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