Palestinians are preparing to bury the remains of 105 people killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City in October 2023, with coffins due to be carried through the streets in a funeral procession involving relatives.
The victims died during a series of air strikes on 25 October that brought down the seven-storey Al Taj 3 building and destroyed other residential properties around Yarmouk Square. At least 20 bombs were used in the attack, according to Gaza’s civil defence.
The remains are due to be buried on Thursday at Sheikh Radwan cemetery, north-west of Gaza City. The recovery operation was conducted in coordination with an Egyptian committee, the General Directorate of Civil Defence said.
Abdul al-Majdalawi, the civil defence operations director, said it had been “impossible” to reach the bodies immediately after the attack.
“Bulldozers, excavators and other heavy machinery used by civil defence teams in Gaza were directly and deliberately targeted,” he said.
The operation was described by Al Jazeera correspondent Ibrahim Khalili as the fifth largest recovery effort since Israel launched its war in Gaza in October 2023, measured by the number of bodies recovered.
Osama Sharaf said 37 members of his family were killed in the attack. Sixteen more relatives were recovered on Wednesday, including his parents and all his siblings.
“We recovered some of them at the beginning of the war, and today [Wednesday] 16 more were recovered, including my father, my mother, and all of my siblings. My sister’s son was also there with them,” he said.
