The decomposed remains of 112 bodies lay on stretchers in Gaza City, shrouded in flags in the sun’s heat – all that could be found of the Al-Hassaynas of Sabra, a Palestinian clan of proud Bedouin stock all but wiped out by Israel nearly three years ago.
According to Palestinian authorities, 308 members of the extended Al-Hassayna family, also known as the Abu Sharia, were killed on November 22, 2023, when Israeli air strikes brought down a cluster of flat buildings as residents slept in Sabra, one of the old neighbourhoods of Gaza City.
Around half of the dead were previously recovered and buried, but 153 bodies had remained under the rubble until now.
Nearly three years later, a recovery team of 40 workers spent 17 days painstakingly combing the wreckage and brought out remains identified as belonging to 112 of those missing victims.
A cluster of neighbours and surviving members of the clan gathered on Tuesday on a flattened lot of demolished ruins, where the remains were laid out for what Palestinian authorities described as the largest mass funeral of the Gaza war.
Men lifted the stretchers and carried them through the streets. A sign was adorned with portraits of the dead – men, women and children.
“This day is mixed with grief, and it has reopened our wounds three years after this massacre,” said Taysir Al-Hassayna, a surviving member of the clan.
“It has brought sorrow back to our children and women. But our consolation is that we believe they are martyrs with God.”
Reuters was unable to locate an Israeli military statement from November 2023 giving Israel’s account of the strike, which took place in the early weeks of the war launched after Hamas-led fighters stormed out of Gaza, killing 1,200 Israelis. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its account of the incident.
According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 73,000 Palestinians are confirmed to have died in the Israeli war in Gaza. Most of the deaths were documented when bodies were brought to morgues and buried, but around 8,000 more are believed to lie beneath the rubble.
‘They are pieces of me’
Omar Al-Hassayna, 65, a survivor of the Sabra bombing who escaped Gaza for Egypt days after the strike, wept as he watched footage from Tuesday’s funeral of his kin on satellite television in Cairo.
His wife was killed in the bombing, along with four of his adult sons, Abdallah, Abdel-Rahman, Ahmed and Osama. So were his four grandchildren: two little boys and two little girls, the oldest just four, the youngest only a few months old.
“They are pieces of me. I have thought about them every single day. I have seen them in my thoughts and in my dreams,” he said. “The funeral today is the least that could be done for those martyrs. It is time for those bodies, those little bodies, to rest in peace, and for their souls to hover in the skies around us.”
Most of the population of Gaza are descendants of refugees who arrived from territory now located in Israel, so it was common for entire extended families to settle together in clusters of residential buildings. But this meant that one Israeli air strike could effectively wipe out an entire clan.
The Hassaynas, who lived in the Sabra neighbourhood for decades, were a branch of a prominent clan known throughout the enclave for their generosity and humility.
Omar said the Israeli strikes hit three residential buildings where members of the extended family had gathered for shelter, seeking safety in one place as the early days of the war unfolded.
Two of the buildings were completely destroyed, killing almost everyone inside. He was in the third, which was only partially destroyed, and survived with minor injuries from flying debris. Two of his daughters and a son also survived.
An October ceasefire that ended major fighting left Israeli forces in control of over half of Gaza, since expanded to around two-thirds. There, they have bulldozed remaining buildings and ordered people out.
The recovery of bodies can only take place in the remaining third of the territory, where nearly all of Gaza’s more than two million people now live, mostly displaced in makeshift tents or shelters in the damaged buildings.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defence, said identifying the remains of the Al-Hassaynas required a mixture of forensic evidence and memories gathered from survivors.
“The bodies were decomposed. Relatives identified some through their clothes, injuries and distinguishing marks. Some victims had bone fixation plates on some organs, while some women were identified through jewellery they had on or necklaces bearing their names,” Basal said.
With this recovery operation now over, the team would move on to other accessible areas of Gaza.
“If we had at least 10 excavators, bulldozers, excavators, and cranes needed for the work, the job could be completed in three months,” he told Reuters.
When Tuesday’s funeral procession reached a vast graveyard amid the ruins of Gaza, men passed the small shrouded bodies over their shoulders and laid the Hassayna clan to rest in fresh graves.
