Cemeteries: Even The Dead Are Attacked in Gaza

• CrossFireArabia
• August 4, 2024

Mohammed Abu Tayr is trying to put together what can be restored of his father’s grave in the family plot in the Bani Suhaila Cemetery east of Khan Yunis, who died years ago. He is one of the lucky ones because others tried to find the graves of their loved ones but failed according to the Palestine Information Center (PIC).

The Israeli occupation’s military vehicles wreaked havoc and destruction of the Bani Suhaila Cemetery during its last incursion of east of Khan Yunis that began on 22 July and lasted for eight days.

Abu Tayr said he was shocked at the bulldozing of the cemetery and the sight of graves being tampered with, trampled on and bodies exhumed by Israeli machinery. Its sheer desecration.

There is no sanctity for the dead. “What is the fault of the dead in their graves? What did they do to have their dignity and sanctity violated,” he asked.

After the Israeli army left, residents of the area flocked to the cemetery to try to restore and repair what has been completely bulldozed by the Israeli occupation forces.

Where is my mother’s grave?

On the opposite side of the cemetery, Ghaida Abu Tayem sits in tears. She tells the PIC reporter she cannot find her mother’s grave after the Israeli army bulldozed the cemetery. Here, there is no regard for human feelings and values.

The Bani Suhaila cemetery is not the only graveyard the Israeli occupation forces dug up and tombstones willfully destroyed. The Israeli army ravaged all cemeteries in the areas invaded by Israeli ground forces across the Gaza Strip.

And this is the case with the main cemetery in Khan Yunis, west of the city. There, the exhumation and devastation of the graves show the deep-seated hatred Zionists have to the Palestinians, whether dead or alive. Even in death, soldiers wish these graves to disappear and be wiped out.

The PIC reporter stresses that the features of the cemetery are completely changed with the bones of the dead scattered by the Zionist barbarians, with the cemetery being turned into a blasted battlefield.

In addition to destroying and bombing the main cemeteries in the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers dug up and bulldozed the mass and temporary graves hastily made in the courtyards of hospitals, neighborhoods and streets. This makes it difficult to transfer the bodies to the cemeteries.

In a previous statement, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented the Israeli occupation army’s attacks on many cemeteries in the Gaza Strip by deliberately bulldozing them, digging up and vandalizing graves and stealing dozens of bodies in the midst of the ongoing genocide against Palestinian civilians since 7 October 2023.

Mrs. Nour Nasser, a resident of Gaza City who was displaced to areas in the southern part of the Strip, said her martyred brother, “Mohammed, who was in his 20s was buried in the Al-Batsh cemetery in Gaza in dismembered remains, but they were shocked to find out later, the cemetery was bulldozed and there was no longer any trace of her brother.

 The Israeli army did not stop at killing my brother, but also deprived the family of even visiting his grave,” she added.

In another incident, the Israeli army raided a cemetery in Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City with its military vehicles, and exhumed more than a 1000 graves; that was a month ago. The residents of the neighborhood said that the Israeli soldiers stole more than 150 bodies of newly buried people there.

On 25 December 2023, Euro-Med reported it received several testimonies about the Israeli army bulldozing the Beit Hanoun cemetery north of the Gaza Strip and vandalizing its graves.

“Muhammad Abu Awad” from downtown Beit Hanoun said they were taken by surprise when the Israeli army stormed the town’s cemetery and destroying the graves with their military vehicles.

Abu Awad added they observed the Israeli army’s digging operations of specific graves inside the cemetery and stealing the bodies of recently buried people while the remains of the others were mixed together to make it difficult to identify any of them.

By destroying the cemeteries, Israel did not leave any sanctity that was not violated or sins not committed. Today it is trying to annihilate everything in the Gaza Strip, even the dead.