112 Palestinians Buried in Gaza's Largest Mass Funeral
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- Gaza City mourners held the largest mass funeral of the war for 112 members of the Abu Sharia and Hassayna extended families, whose bodies were pulled from rubble over a two-week operation ending recently
- The victims included 40 children, 38 women, and seven people with disabilities; Civil Defence spokesman Mohammed Basel estimated around 90% of more than 180 civilians in the struck building were killed
- The IDF has not responded to the BBC's inquiry about what was targeted when a residential block in Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood was hit on 22 November 2023, six weeks after the October 7 Hamas-led assault
- The ICRC supplied gloves, shovels, protective equipment, body bags, training, and rented two excavators for the recovery, with spokesperson Patrick Griffiths calling the work essential for families' closure
- Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN considers reliable, reports at least 73,377 people killed in Gaza since the war began, with thousands more still unaccounted for under rubble across the territory
- Yousef Abu Sharia, describing himself as the sole survivor of his family, said he lost his mother, father, uncle, and cousins beneath the rubble, while relative Nahed al-Hassayna displayed children's school bags recovered from the site
Why it matters: The excavation—requiring ICRC-rented excavators and two weeks of work to retrieve remains from a single November 2023 strike—illustrates how Gaza's documented death toll of at least 73,377 leaves thousands still missing under rubble, with families unable to mourn until international-coordinated recovery operations reach them.
