Mass funeral for Palestinians recovered from beneath the rubble in Gaza [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]
By Anadolu, AP and Reuters6 Sep 2026
Palestinians have held a funeral procession for 100 people whose bodies were recovered from beneath the rubble of destroyed homes in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
Thousands of Palestinians, including relatives of the victims, attended the procession on Sunday. The remains were laid out near the ruins of the homes and draped in Palestinian flags.
The victims, from the Rahim, Balawi, Malaka, Qanbour and Salmi families, were killed when Israeli forces struck several residential homes around two and a half years ago, according to local authorities.
Similar mass recovery operations in recent weeks have retrieved more than 100 bodies from the Abu Shariah and Hassaniya families killed in a single strike, and more than 500 from the al-Taj Tower site, officials and activists said.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 73,651 Palestinians have been killed and 174,592 injured since October 2023.
Mourners carry bodies covered in Palestinian flags during the mass funeral in Gaza City. [Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters]The victims recovered from rubble were killed by Israeli strikes in 2023. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]Many of the dead came from the extended Malaka family, which alone lost 55 members, along with the Balawi, Salmi and other Zeitoun neighbourhood families. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territories, told Al Jazeera that the scenes were a reminder of the “brutality of this conflict”. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]The remains were carried by family members from Zeitoun to al-Ma’madani cemetery in central Gaza City for burial. [Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu]Similar mass recovery operations in recent weeks have retrieved more than 100 bodies from the Abu Shariah and Hassaniya families killed in a single strike, and more than 500 from the al-Taj Tower site. [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 73,651 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. [Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu]
