In brief
A solemn ceremony in Gaza City marks the loss of 112 Palestinians killed by an Israeli strike on 22 November 2023. The victims—44 children, 38 women and seven disabled persons—were recovered after a two‑week dig behind collapsed walls. Civil Defence, with help from the International Committee of the Red Cross, carried out the delicate cleanup while families guided the process. The strike follows six weeks after the Oct 7 Hamas attacks, and the Israeli Defence Forces have yet to explain the target of the raid. The Gaza war has already claimed over 73,000 lives, underscoring the dire human toll that continues to unfold.
In Gaza City this week, a massive funeral gathered hundreds as families mourned the 112 Palestinians—mostly women and children—who perished when an Israeli missile struck a residential block in the Sabra neighbourhood on 22 November 2023.
The bodies, recovered after a two‑week dig behind layers of collapsed architecture, revealed the scale of the loss: 44 children, 38 women and seven people with disabilities from the Abu Sharia and Hassayna clans.
The service, the largest of its kind in Gaza, saw the remains lined in rows, each marked with the Palestinian flag and photographs before relatives carried them away.
Civil Defence workers, backed by the International Committee of the Red Cross, carried out the painstaking clean‑up, using bulldozers and hand tools under the guidance of surviving family members.
Since the start of the Gaza war, Hamas' interior ministry reports at least 73,377 people have been killed in the Strip—figures the United Nations treats as reliable—highlighting the human toll of the ongoing conflict.
Questions linger over the target of the strike, and the Israeli Defence Forces have yet to respond to BBC inquiries about what was aimed for that day.
Surviving relatives such as Nahed al‑Hassayna and Yousef Abu Sharia spoke of their grief, noting that the rubble still contains bodies yet to be found, underscoring the devastating and unresolved loss.
