Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City on Tuesday held a mass funeral for 112 members of the Abu Sharia al-Hassaina family, a well-known and respected clan that has been nearly wiped out by Israel’s genocidal war, the Palestinian news agency WAFA has reported.
The bodies of the 112 Palestinians mourned on Tuesday were recovered from the rubble in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, where they were buried by Israeli airstrikes that collapsed entire residential buildings in November 2023. Photos show the bodies draped in Palestinian flags during the funeral.
Ali Abu Sharia, an elder and surviving member of the family, said the 112 people buried on Tuesday included 44 children, 37 women, 23 elderly people, and seven persons with disabilities. A total of 308 members of the family have been killed by Israeli attacks, including 267 who have been buried and 41 whose remains are still missing.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense, detailed in comments to Reuters how the bodies were identified. “The bodies were decomposed. Relatives identified some through their clothes, injuries and distinguishing marks. Some victims had bone fixation plates on some organs, while some women were identified through jewelry they had on or necklaces bearing their names,” he said.
The recovery of bodies from the rubble in Gaza is a painstaking effort since the US and Israel continue to block the entry of construction equipment. The work can only be done in the areas of Gaza not occupied by the IDF, and this area has been shrinking as Israeli troops have taken more territory in recent months, a clear violation of the October 2025 ceasefire deal. “If we had at least 10 excavators, bulldozers, and cranes needed for the work, the job could be completed in three months,” Basal said.
According to numbers released by Gaza’s Health Ministry on Tuesday, 804 bodies have been recovered from the rubble since October 2025. At the time of the signing of the ceasefire agreement, Gaza rescue workers estimated that around 10,000 Palestinians were missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
The ministry also said that in that same period, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,252 Palestinians and wounded 4,120, as the IDF never followed the ceasefire agreement despite Hamas living up to its end of the deal by releasing the remaining Israeli hostages and working to recover the bodies of deceased Israeli captives.
Israel has continued its attacks in Gaza despite Hamas agreeing to a disarmament plan announced by President Trump and the so-called “Board of Peace” on July 30, with dozens of Palestinians killed since then. There’s no sign that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ever agreed to the deal, and the BoP walked back a key part of the agreement after meeting with him, saying that the IDF would withdraw from Gaza only after Hamas disarmed, contradicting its previous statements that said the disarmament and withdrawal would happen “in lockstep.”
