The number of deaths in Gaza has risen to more than 40,000 in more than ten months of war (File)
Funeral directors work like masons in a Gaza cemetery, stacking cinder blocks in tight rectangles, side by side, for freshly dug graves.
More than ten months into the Gaza war, so many bodies arrive at the cemetery in Deir el-Balah that the men, working in the hot sun, barely have room to bury them.
“The cemetery is so full that we are now digging graves on top of other graves. We have piled the dead in levels,” said Saadi Hassan Barakeh, who leads his team of grave diggers.
Barakeh, 63, has been burying the dead for 28 years. He says he has never seen this “in all the wars in Gaza.”
Previously, Barakeh also oversaw burials at the nearby Ansar Cemetery, which covers 3.5 hectares.
But now “the Ansar cemetery is completely full. There were too many deaths,” he says, his clothes stained with dirt from digging graves.
He now manages Al-Soueid Cemetery alone, with its 5.5 hectares of graves. But even with one cemetery instead of two, he works “every day, from six in the morning to six at night.”
“Before the war we had one or two funerals a week, maximum five,” he says, wearing a white prayer cap to match his long beard.
“Now there are weeks where I bury 200 to 300 people. It’s unbelievable.”
‘I can’t sleep’
The number of deaths in Gaza of just over 40,000 in more than ten months of war is putting pressure on both the population and the cemeteries, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Barakeh witnesses the tragedies every day. With hoe in hand, he cheers on his twelve workers as they prepare and close dozens of graves every day.
At night, however, some images are hard to forget.
“I can’t sleep after seeing so many mutilated children’s bodies and dead women,” he said, adding: “I have buried 47 women from one family.”
The October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Hamas operatives also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 40,005 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. This does not provide an overview of the deaths of civilians and militants.
“I buried many women and children, and only two or three boys from Hamas,” Barakeh says.
“Why the children?”
If Israelis “have a problem with (Yahya) Sinwar, why are they harming children?” he adds, referring to the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attacks, who is now the overall leader of Hamas.
“Let them kill Sinwar and everyone else, but why the women and children?”
Mounds of freshly dug soil recall recent burials. Graves with white headstones fill almost all available space, while men dig new holes in the few empty spots.
The team forms a human chain to transport the cinder blocks, the price of which has soared since factories in Gaza closed due to a lack of fuel and raw materials.
“One shekel ($0.27) before the war, ten or twelve today,” he complained.
Except for gravediggers and workers carrying cinder blocks, hardly anyone comes to funerals anymore, Barakeh says.
“Before the war, there would sometimes be a thousand people at a funeral; today there are days when we bury a hundred people and not even twenty are there to lay them to rest.”
High above his head, the constant buzz of an Israeli surveillance drone is a reminder of the aerial threat that produces a steady stream of bodies.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)