Published On 2/7/2026
The journey of death in the Gaza Strip turns into an endless human saga, where the pain is not limited to the loss of loved ones, but extends to the suffering of finding a decent grave to cover them.
In the Sheikh Radwan Cemetery and the Al-Baptist Cemetery – the only ones in the Gaza Strip – the spaces can no longer accommodate the increasing number of martyrs due to the ongoing Israeli aggression.
Cemetery workers are facing an unprecedented crisis, as they are forced to bury more than one martyr in one grave, and one of them reveals to Al Jazeera that the grave that was designated for one martyr now contains from 10 to 22 martyrs, indicating that he made a gravestone with the names of 22 martyrs and another with the names of 19 martyrs.
In the “Voices from Gaza” segment on Al Jazeera, cemetery workers complained about the lack of basic materials such as cement and stones as a result of the Israeli siege and closure of the crossings, noting that this situation forces them to use the rubble of destroyed homes and mud to cover the bodies of the martyrs in a cemetery that is at least 300 years old and has become crowded with graves, making digging a new grave there almost impossible.
In a related context, the suffering of families has multiplied with the rise in burial costs, as the price of one grave ranges between 1,200-1,400 shekels (about 400 to 465 dollars), and hundreds of bereaved families are forced to convert the courtyards of their homes and private gardens into emergency burials for the martyred children and grandchildren.
Missing file
Regarding the missing, the paragraph explains that about 9.5 thousand missing persons whose fate is still unknown under the rubble, and the head of the National Committee for Missing Persons in Gaza, Dr. Alaa al-Din al-Aklouk, confirms that this file reveals the extent of the crime committed by the occupation against thousands of innocent people in the Strip.
On the other hand, the report explains that the Israeli occupation continues to bulldoze dozens of graves during military operations, and in a scene that reflects the scale of this disaster, journalist Yusra Al-Aklouk lost track of her brother’s grave, who was buried in 2014, after it was replaced by a small headstone bearing the name of another martyr and a new burial date.
While statistics from the Ministry of Health in Gaza indicate that the number of martyrs exceeded 71,000, experts expect that the crisis will worsen as the war continues, as collapsed buildings turn into mass graves, and memories turn into faded images lost amid the echo of devastation.
In mid-May, press reports documented the suffering of the martyrs’ families in obtaining suitable graves to bury their loved ones, as these families no longer found enough space for burial, so the graves began to be opened more than once to bury more than one martyr within one grave, while hundreds of families resorted to converting their homes into emergency cemeteries.
The Ministry of Endowments in Gaza had previously warned of the seriousness of the situation, especially after the occupation bulldozed dozens of graves during its military operations, while Palestinian civil defense teams continued to recover bodies from under the rubble, in a scene that reflects the scale of the humanitarian tragedy that the Strip has been experiencing since the outbreak of war on October 7, 2023.
