Palestinians in Gaza City on Tuesday buried 112 members of a single clan whose remains were recovered from the rubble of an Israeli air strike nearly three years ago. The bodies of the Abu Shari'a and al-Hasayna families lay in rows draped in Palestinian flags as relatives gathered for a mass funeral, a moment of both relief and renewed grief after nearly 1,000 days of waiting.
The strike hit a residential block in the Sabra neighbourhood in November 2023, flattening the building where hundreds of clan members had lived and sheltered. It was one of the deadliest single strikes of the war. More than 300 people were killed, including 44 children, 37 women and more than 10 people with disabilities.
Recovery efforts had stopped in the early months of the war because search-and-rescue teams lacked heavy equipment, which had been destroyed or blocked from entering Gaza. Civil Defence crews resumed work at the site on 14 July. By 1 August they had recovered the remains of 112 people. Mahmoud Basal, a Civil Defence spokesperson, said crews worked for 17 days in extremely difficult conditions and that thousands more are still believed to be buried under rubble across the territory.
Among the dead were Fathi Abu Shari'a, the clan's elder, and Mofeed al-Hasayneh, who served as the Palestinian Authority's minister of public works and housing between 2014 and 2019 and held American citizenship. Around 200 members of the Hasayneh family had taken shelter in his house, believing it would be spared, but it was also bombed, killing the former minister and those sheltering with him. A survivor, Mahmoud al-Hasayneh, said many of the dead held Romanian, British or American citizenship, and that he lost his brother, sisters and their families in the strike.
Omar Nofal, head of Gaza's government committee for missing persons, said about 6,000 people are officially registered as missing in Gaza, but the true figure is likely closer to 15,000. The Palestinian health ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 170,000 since October 2023.