Gaza funeral held for 112 bodies recovered from Sabra rubble after 2023 strike

Palestinians in Gaza held a collective funeral on Tuesday for more than 100 bodies recovered from the rubble of a residential block in Sabra, in Gaza City. The remains were linked to an Israeli air strike on 22 November 2023, one of the deadliest attacks in the early weeks of the war. Rescue teams recovered 112 bodies this weekend, including 40 children, after digging through destroyed buildings in the area.

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According to the Hamas-run Civil Defense, the strike killed more than 300 people when warplanes destroyed the neighbourhood during the conflict's opening phase. About 40 bodies were recovered soon after the attack, using improvised tools and bare hands, but most of the dead remained buried under the debris. The Civil Defense said 157 bodies from the same site have still not been found.

It described the missing as if their bodies had "evaporated without a trace". The recovery took place during the current ceasefire, which has allowed search teams to enter damaged parts of the Gaza Strip and retrieve remains from sites that had been inaccessible for months. The newly recovered bodies have added to the official death toll from the war, which Gaza health authorities say has continued to rise.

The funeral also underscored the scale of the destruction in Sabra, where entire families were killed in a single bombardment. The incident remains significant because it shows how the humanitarian consequences of the war continue long after the original strike. Families are still waiting for answers about relatives who were never formally recovered, and the latest exhumations highlight the limits of rescue work in an area where large parts of the territory remain heavily damaged.

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The recovery of bodies during a ceasefire also illustrates how pauses in fighting are being used not only for aid delivery but for the difficult task of identifying the dead. The 2023 strike came shortly after the start of the war triggered by the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages were taken. In response, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza that Gaza health authorities say has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

The Sabra attack has remained one of the most closely remembered episodes of the conflict because of the number of civilians reported killed and the long delay before many of the bodies could be recovered. What remains unclear is how many of the missing from the Sabra site will ultimately be found, and how many may still be trapped under the rubble elsewhere in Gaza. Officials have said at least 7,400 people are still believed to be buried under debris, though the real number may be higher.

Further recovery work is expected to continue while the ceasefire holds, but the pace will depend on access, safety and the condition of the destroyed neighbourhoods.

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