Mass funeral held in Gaza for victims of 2023 Israeli strike

Remains of 112 victims, including 40 children, recovered from rubble more than two years after residential block was destroyed. Mourners gathered in central Gaza on Tuesday for a mass funeral for 112 people, including 40 children, who were killed in 2023 in one of the deadliest Israeli strikes of the Gaza war.

Their bodies could not be recovered until now because of Israel’s continuing strikes, which have slowed, though not halted, since the ceasefire in October.

Hundreds of people gathered around more than 100 coffins wrapped in Palestinian flags and arranged in rows on the ground in Deir al-Balah. Mourners prayed for the victims before carrying the bodies through rubble-lined streets and past destroyed buildings for burial in a nearby cemetery.

The victims had been among more than 300 people killed on 22 November 2023, when Israeli warplanes demolished a residential block in Gaza City. The bodies of only about 40 people could be recovered by people at the scene, who dug through smouldering rubble with their bare hands and basic tools.

Last weekend, Gaza’s civil defence dug through the levelled apartment block and recovered the remains of a further 112 victims, including women and children. It said 157 people were still missing after the attack.

The ceasefire that was established in October – which has not stopped Israeli bombing of Gaza – has allowed first responders to dig through the rubble where thousands of remains are still buried across the territory.