Gaza holds funeral for 100 Palestinians recovered from rubble of destroyed homes

Palestinians held a funeral procession on Sunday for 100 people recovered from under the rubble of destroyed homes in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood following Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave, Anadolu reports.

Thousands of Palestinians, including relatives of the victims as well as community and political figures, attended the procession, with the bodies and remains laid out in an area near the ruins of the destroyed homes and draped in Palestinian flags.

The funeral includes 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 are expected to be buried at Al-Ahli cemetery in the Zeitoun neighborhood after funeral prayers.

Civil Defense teams recovered them 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 operations are being carried out with limited resources, including only a small number of excavators and deteriorating equipment, amid Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy machinery and equipment needed to search the rubble.

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.