Mass funeral takes place in Gaza for 112 victims of Israeli strike
· UPIAug. 4 (UPI) -- Hundreds gathered Tuesday in Gaza City to mourn more than 100 people killed in 2023 in one of the deadliest Israeli military strikes of the war.
The 112 coffins, each covered with a Palestinian flag, contained mostly the remains of those from a single extended family group -- the Hassayna and Abu Sharia clan. About 40 were children.
"O nation, why are children getting killed in Gaza?" said Mahmoud Basal, spokesman of Gaza's Civil Defense, at the funeral. "Why are women getting killed in Gaza? Why are massacres committed against innocents in Gaza?"
Mourners scattered flower petals over the bodies and prayed for the dead before they carried the coffins to their burial site.
CBS News reported that Israel's military said in a statement that it "does not deliberately target the civilian population and takes all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians." It passed the blame to Hamas,saying that it "systemically operates from within, beneath and in close proximity to densely populated areas and civilian infrastructure, exploiting the civilian population to shield its military activities."
It took nearly three years to recover the bodies because of ongoing attacks by Israel. The original attack in November 2023 struck a residential block in Gaza City. At the time, people could only recover about 40b odies with the tools available, but more than 300 were presumed killed.
More recently, civil defense recovery teams were able to dig through the rubble and exhume the remains of the 112 people memorialized Tuesday. In addition, about 150 people are still missing.
In June, a United Nations commission found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that security forces "deliberately targeted and killed" Palestinian children. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also found that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Israeli officials deny this and say Hamas attempted genocide in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. About 1,200 people were killed in that attack, while five Israeli soldiers have died since the October 2025 cease-fire.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 73,000 people in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023. That included more than 1,250 people since the cease-fire.