Gaza Buries 112 From 2023 Strike After Years Under Rubble

Hundreds of mourners gathered in Deir al-Balah on Tuesday around more than 100 flag-wrapped coffins for a mass funeral of 112 people killed in a November 2023 Israeli airstrike. The remains, including those of 40 children, had lain under rubble for nearly three years until Gaza’s Civil Defense recovered them last weekend.

The strike flattened a residential block in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, killing more than 300 people from the Hassayna and Abu Sharia families. Only about 40 bodies could be pulled free in the immediate chaos with bare hands and basic tools. Now the ceasefire has opened a narrow window for the rest.

The ceremony marked more than a burial. It closed a long gap between the moment the building fell and the moment families could name the dead. That gap still stretches across other sites where the same recovery work has barely begun.

The Strike That Buried Entire Clans

On 22 November 2023, weeks into the war, Israeli warplanes demolished the apartment block where the extended families had sheltered. Palestinian authorities put the death toll from that single attack near 308. Many victims were related; AP reporting has identified at least 60 Gazan families that lost 25 or more members in the war’s first three months alone.

Rescue workers at the time described smouldering rubble and frantic digging. Most remains stayed trapped deep in the collapsed concrete and steel. Civil Defense later said the munitions’ force left some bodies disintegrated.

The pattern repeated across Gaza City in those early months. Entire clans packed into single blocks for safety, then vanished together when the buildings came down. The Sabra strike stands as one of the clearest examples because so many of the dead shared the same two family names.

1. 22 November 2023: Israeli airstrike levels residential block in Sabra, Gaza City; more than 300 killed.
2. Immediate aftermath: Roughly 40 bodies recovered by hand and basic tools.
3. July 2026: Broader recovery project launches across 147 destroyed homes.
4. Late July-early August 2026: 136-hour operation recovers 112 more remains from the site.
5. 4 August 2026: Mass funeral held in Deir al-Balah.

The operation formed part of a second-phase search for an estimated 1,072 bodies believed still trapped in Gaza City and northern and central areas. That second phase only became possible once the fighting eased enough for crews to reach the ruins without constant interruption.

Hands Through Reinforced Concrete

Gaza Civil Defense crews spent 136 hours on the Sabra site with limited resources and no heavy machinery. Supervisor Mohammed Abu Dan said teams dug with their hands through masses of reinforced concrete. Some remains stayed locked in the steel and concrete; others had evaporated from the blast intensity.

The victims included 40 children, 38 women and seven people with disabilities. Civil Defense warned that 157 more bodies from the same attack remain unrecovered at the site.

• 112 remains recovered in the latest dig, belonging mainly to the al-Hasayna and Abu Sharia families.
• 136 hours of continuous manual work under difficult conditions.
• 157 still missing from this single residential block.
• No heavy equipment despite ceasefire terms that were supposed to allow it.

Palestinian authorities accuse Israel of blocking the entry of machinery promised under the first phase of the October ceasefire. The pause has slowed but not stopped Israeli strikes. Without excavators or cranes, every hour of digging yields only what hands and simple tools can shift.

The 136-hour stretch left crews exhausted and the site only partly cleared. The same constraint now shapes the wider search across the 147 destroyed homes listed in the second-phase project.

Thousands Still Listed Under the Rubble

Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Gaza health ministry’s records department, told the Associated Press that at least 7,400 people have been reported by relatives as still buried under rubble. He said the true figure is probably thousands higher because some strikes wiped out entire families, leaving no one to file a missing-person report.

These recoveries push the official toll higher even as fighting has eased. Gaza’s government media office had earlier put missing persons near 9,500. Independent tallies and household surveys have produced similar overall death ranges, with verification slowed by the unrecovered.

Each new body brought out of the concrete revises the count upward. The gap between the 7,400 reported missing and the higher media-office estimate of near 9,500 shows how incomplete the lists remain when whole households disappear at once.

One Relative’s Verdict After the Prayers

At the funeral the coffins lay in rows on the ground, many marked with photos, flower petals scattered around them. Hundreds surrounded the remains for prayers, some standing on nearby rubble. Then mourners carried the bodies on stretchers through narrow streets lined with destroyed buildings to a nearby cemetery.

The only crime of these martyrs was that they remained steadfast and resilient in their homes, believing that these homes would protect them.

Taysir al-Hassayna, a relative, told the Associated Press after the prayers. For the missing, he said, it is as if their bodies had evaporated without a trace.

Crowds on X and elsewhere noted the nearly three-year wait and the manual nature of the digs. One widely shared observation highlighted how recovery of Israeli remains often received full equipment and cooperation while Palestinian teams still work with basic tools years later. That disparity sits inside the larger pattern of unfinished accounting.

The photos on the coffins gave faces to names that had existed only as absences. For relatives of the 157 still missing from the same block, that recognition has not yet arrived.

A Ceasefire That Lets the Dead Surface

The October ceasefire, which took effect around 10 October 2025 in some accounts, halted much of the intense fighting but has not ended strikes. At least 26 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes over the most recent weekend, days after U.S. President Donald Trump called a new deal on the second phase a historic agreement. That deal aimed at Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawal; Israel later cited serious security concerns. Hamas has tied any disarmament to full Israeli pullout.

Talks have largely stalled. Israel controls over half the territory and has refused full withdrawal. Most of Gaza’s roughly 2 million people remain displaced in overcrowded tent camps facing disease and rodent infestations. Reconstruction estimates run near $70 billion.

The same pause that allowed the Sabra dig has also enabled other body recoveries, each one adding names and raising the recorded toll. Yet the work stays slow and incomplete. Parallel political moves, from Egypt’s push at the UN on Gaza aid to domestic Israeli debates, continue against this backdrop of physical ruin.

The ceasefire’s practical effect on the dead is clearer than its effect on the living. It opened ground for Civil Defense teams. It did not open the border for the heavy machines those teams still lack.

Findings That Frame the Scale of Loss

A UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza and is continuing to do so. In its June 2026 report the commission found that Israeli security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, describing the practice as a key element of genocidal intent. Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar stated that the evidence shows children have been deliberately targeted and killed, including after the October 2025 ceasefire.

The commission’s UN commission report on child targeting details unprecedented death, injury and trauma among children, the collapse of education and healthcare, and long-term destruction of childhood itself. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reached parallel genocide findings. Israel rejects the accusations and states its operations target militants who endanger soldiers or took part in the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack that killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

Inside Israel, debates over the territory’s future include Israeli ministers joining resettlement marches and plans to rebuild outposts Israel dismantled in 2005. Those political currents run alongside the practical reality still unfolding under the rubble.

The 40 children among the newly recovered remains give a local measure to the commission’s wider findings on child targeting. Their ages and names now enter the official record after nearly three years out of sight.

Two Families Carry the Heaviest Share

The Hassayna and Abu Sharia families account for most of the 112 remains recovered in the latest dig and for the bulk of the original toll near 308. The concentration of loss inside two extended clans mirrors the broader pattern AP reporting documented across at least 60 Gazan families that each lost 25 or more members in the war’s first three months.

When a single residential block shelters related households, one strike can erase generations at once. That is what happened in Sabra. The survivors who remain must now bury what the rubble has yielded and keep waiting for the 157 still missing from the same site.

• Most of the 112 recovered remains belong to the al-Hasayna and Abu Sharia families.
• The original strike killed more than 300 people from those same extended families.
• At least 60 Gazan families lost 25 or more members in the war’s first three months.
• Some strikes left no survivors to file missing-person reports at all.

The funeral in Deir al-Balah therefore served two families whose names dominate the casualty lists from that November day. It also stood in for the many other clans still waiting for their own recoveries across the 147 homes in the wider project.

The Second Phase Search Moves Slowly

The Sabra operation sits inside a larger second-phase effort aimed at an estimated 1,072 bodies still trapped in Gaza City and northern and central areas. Crews launched that project in July 2026 across 147 destroyed homes. Progress depends on the same manual methods used at Sabra because the promised heavy machinery has not arrived.

Each site presents the same obstacles: reinforced concrete, limited tools, and the risk that some remains have disintegrated beyond recovery. The 136 hours spent on one block illustrate how long even a partial clearance can take. Scaled across 147 homes, the timeline stretches far beyond any single ceasefire window.

Civil Defense teams continue the work while the political talks over disarmament and withdrawal remain stalled. The dead surface only as fast as hands can dig.

What the Coffins Leave Unfinished

The 112 burials close one chapter for two extended families. They leave 157 more names from the same block unaccounted for, and thousands more across the strip. Every new recovery operation, performed largely by hand, adds to the official death count and forces a fresh reckoning with the war’s opening months.

Gaza’s Civil Defense continues the wider search. The fragile ceasefire keeps the window open for now. The missing do not wait on political timelines.

Until the remaining bodies come out of the concrete, the official toll stays provisional and the families keep two sets of names: the buried and the still missing.