Deir el-Balah – Dozens of our bodies, wrapped in improvised white cloths that double as shrouds, lie collectively in a newly dug mass grave.
They’re the unidentified Palestinians who had been killed in Israeli assaults, their our bodies are both charred past recognition or torn aside, to the purpose the place the burial supervisors are typically not fully positive in the event that they acquired the entire individual.
However the workforce at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital does its greatest to supply the correct Islamic burial rituals to the stays, hoping that their efforts will permit the deceased victims to relaxation.
Yasser Abu Ammar, who supervises the ritual washing of the useless on the hospital, advised Al Jazeera: “About 80 % of the our bodies we obtain are torn aside. We’re burying torn-apart limbs, and a few our bodies have their organs lacerated and uncovered.
“We’ve never seen anything like this, like these puzzling wounds inflicted on these mangled body parts.”
Abu Ammar added that he had supervised the burial of physique elements belonging to a six-member household in a single shroud.
“All of them barely made up one complete body,” he mentioned.
Mohammed al-Hajj, hospital spokesperson, mentioned about 150 unknown our bodies have been buried thus far, documented by a committee of police and well being officers.
The our bodies are numbered and photographed for the file.
“We also include information about the Israeli bombing that hit them, the date and place of the attack and the timing,” al-Hajj mentioned. “We also record the names of the wounded and identified deceased people who arrived at the hospital at the same time.”
“It’s very hard to identify these bodies,” Abu Ammar mentioned. “Family members resort to scrutinising body parts to catch a scar or a mole or even the burned remains of clothes that will help them identify their loved ones, but most of them can’t.”
In all his years of washing and burying our bodies, he mentioned, the primary time he encountered unknown our bodies was throughout this, the present Israeli offensive on Gaza.
“When I’m at home, my brain plays the tape of everything I saw that day … in detail. I can’t stop it. I’ve had the most terrible nightmares about these bodies.”
“This is the most harrowing thing I’ve ever been through.”
Images are useful if family come to the hospital inquiring about their family members, however Abu Ammar says that normally, the victims’ skulls are shattered and their faces burned past recognition.
“These bodies were human beings … had dignity,” he mentioned. “To see their bodies reduced to burned remains or chopped pieces is unbearable.”
