DaysofPal – Gaza’s Civil Defense recovered the bodies of 94 Palestinians on Saturday who had been buried haphazardly in a street in Gaza City during Israel’s war on the enclave, as part of efforts to transfer them to official cemeteries.
Throughout nearly two years of Israel’s genocidal war, thousands of Palestinians were forced to bury their loved ones in temporary and mass graves, as well as in schoolyards, hospital grounds, and public streets. Intense Israeli bombardment and the impossibility of safely reaching formal cemeteries left families with no alternative but to conduct emergency burials.
In a statement, the Civil Defense said its crews, working in coordination with local residents, retrieved the remains of 94 people who had been buried during the war in an improvised grave along Al-Sahaba Street in central Gaza City.
The bodies were transferred to the forensic department at Al-Shifa Medical Complex to complete the necessary procedures, ahead of their reburial in the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
The agency noted that, in cooperation with the Ministries of Health and Religious Endowments, it has over recent months relocated the remains of thousands of Palestinians who were buried in makeshift locations due to wartime conditions. It added that the identities of some of the recovered bodies remain unknown.
Civil Defense teams have been operating since the start of the war in an extremely hazardous health environment caused by the widespread presence of exposed bodies and the severe shortage of protective equipment and biological testing tools in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli restrictions and the continued ban on the entry of essential medical supplies have further complicated rescue and recovery operations, exposing personnel to serious health risks, including disease and infection, during body retrieval and transport.
On October 10, 2025, a ceasefire agreement came into effect in Gaza alongside a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, under a plan announced by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The agreement brought an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, carried out with U.S. backing, which resulted in approximately 71,000 Palestinians killed and 171,000 wounded, most of them women and children. The assault also caused massive destruction, with the United Nations estimating the cost of reconstruction at around $70 billion.
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