GAZA CITY, Sept 6 — Palestinians held a funeral procession on Sunday for 100 people whose remains were recovered from under the rubble of destroyed homes in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood following Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported.
Thousands of Palestinians, including relatives of the victims as well as community and political figures, attended the procession, with the remains laid out in an area near the ruins of the destroyed homes and draped in Palestinian flags.
The funeral includes memorial addresses by Gaza’s Civil Defence, whose teams carried out the recovery operations, as well as representatives of the victims’ families and community figures.
The remains are expected to be buried at Al-Ahli cemetery in the Zeitoun neighbourhood after funeral prayers.
Civil Defence teams recovered them in recent days as part of the second phase of a project launched on July 19 to retrieve the remains of Palestinians still buried beneath the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Israeli war.
The victims belonged to the Rahim, Balawi, Malaka, Qanbour and Salmi families and were killed when Israeli forces struck several residential homes around two and a half years ago, according to local authorities.
Recovery operations are being carried out with limited resources, including only a small number of excavators and deteriorating equipment, amid Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy machinery and equipment needed to search the rubble.
Sunday’s ceremony is among the largest funerals in Palestinian history in terms of the number of bodies and remains being buried, according to an Anadolu tally.
A similar funeral was held in early August for 112 Palestinians recovered from the rubble of homes in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood.
The second phase of the recovery project involves 800 hours of work at 147 destroyed homes across Gaza City and the northern and central parts of the enclave, where 1,072 remains are believed to still be buried.
The first phase began in late November 2025 and involved 500 hours of work. Civil Defence teams recovered around 333 remains out of an estimated 559 missing beneath the rubble of 54 homes and buildings.
Under the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, in effect since Oct 10, 2025, Israel was expected to allow the entry of heavy machinery and equipment needed for recovery operations, according to Palestinian authorities in the enclave.
The ceasefire followed nearly two years of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and injured over 174,000, while destroying or damaging much of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure. — Bernama-Anadolu
