As families retrieve bodies, Gaza is running out of places to bury the dead
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- Gaza's Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs reports more than 40 of the territory's roughly 60 cemeteries have been destroyed since the war began in October 2023, and most remaining sites were already at full capacity when fighting started.
- Khan Younis Cemetery grew from about 60 graves at the war's outset to roughly 6,000 now, with gravedigger Tafesh Abu Hatab saying he prepared about 35 graves a day during peak periods, many for entire families killed when single buildings were struck.
- Omar al-Sawhi, 20, buried his father Mohammad, 40, inside his grandfather's grave at Zeitoun Cemetery because no new plot was available, describing graves "packed together" and marked only with a stone and a piece of paper bearing the deceased's name.
- Burial costs now range from 700 to 1,000 shekels ($235 to $335) due to shortages of headstones and other materials, and areas once designated for burial have been converted into shelters for Palestinians displaced by Israeli bombardment.
- Since the October 2025 US-brokered ceasefire, at least 1,200 more Palestinians have been killed and authorities in Gaza have recovered the remains of 529 Palestinians from seven mass graves on hospital grounds as families reclaim their dead from rubble and makeshift sites.
- Ikrami al-Madallal of the Endowments Ministry said authorities are actively searching for new burial grounds and that transferring bodies from temporary resting places requires coordination among the ministry, local government, and other agencies.
Why it matters: With over 73,000 dead, more than 40 cemeteries destroyed, and displacement camps sitting on former burial land, Gaza's Ministry of Endowments is openly hunting for new grounds — meaning the war has now stripped Palestinians not only of homes but of the ability to give their dead permanent, marked resting places, even for those killed after the October 2025 ceasefire.
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