Gaza City — For many families in Gaza, grief has not ended with death. Instead, it has been reopened, violated, and deepened as Israeli military operations have extended even into cemeteries, leaving shattered graves, scattered remains, and anguished relatives searching for answers.
At al-Batsh cemetery in the Tuffah neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City, the Israeli military recently carried out excavation operations while searching for the remains of the last Israeli captive, police officer Ran Gvili. In the process, at least 250 graves were dug up, according to local officials and aerial imagery, transforming a place of mourning into a scene of devastation.
Families say the operation has compounded their suffering, stripping them of the final dignity afforded to their loved ones in death.
“I imagined the bulldozers reaching my husband’s grave”
For Fatima Abdullah, the memory of al-Batsh cemetery is now inseparable from fear and helplessness.
The cemetery holds the grave of her husband, Mohammad al-Shaarawi, who was killed in an Israeli drone strike on December 11, 2024, while standing with friends in Tuffah. Fatima and her three children were displaced in southern Gaza at the time of his killing.
“When we heard the army was digging there, we were all on edge,” Fatima told Al Jazeera. “Everyone was terrified it would be their loved one’s grave next.”
She recalls imagining the sound of heavy machinery approaching her husband’s resting place.
“I kept saying, ‘No, God, please no.’”
The Israeli operation involved bulldozers and heavy equipment, which residents say uprooted both recent and old graves, smashed tombstones, and dumped human remains indiscriminately.
“Even the dead were not spared,” Fatima said. “Corpses scattered, bones exposed, remains thrown into bags. They bulldozed the graves as if the people buried there were nothing.”
Graves turned unreachable even after ceasefire
Before the war intensified, Fatima visited her husband’s grave regularly — on holidays, birthdays, and family occasions — often bringing her children.
“They didn’t feel like they were visiting a sad place,” she said. “They felt they were going to see their father.”
That ritual ended after the mass evacuation of Shujayea in June 2024, when Israeli bombardment made access to the cemetery impossible. Rubble, unexploded ordnance, and military activity surrounded the area.
Even after the ceasefire announced in October 2025, al-Batsh cemetery remained near the so-called “yellow line”, an area under Israeli military control.
“No one knows what they took or what they returned — if anything at all,” Fatima said. “We are just waiting, hoping that the next phase of the ceasefire will allow us to go back and see.”
She paused before adding, “We didn’t even have the luxury of mourning properly. Now they’ve taken the graves too.”
A pattern of cemetery destruction
Human rights groups say the events at al-Batsh cemetery are not isolated.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the Israeli military has destroyed or severely damaged around 21 of Gaza’s 60 cemeteries during successive military operations. The organisation reports widespread exhumation of remains, the mixing or disappearance of bodies, and permanent loss of grave locations.
Cemeteries reported as damaged or destroyed include:
- Beit Hanoon cemetery, northern Gaza
- Al-Faluja cemetery, Jabalia
- Ali Ibn Marwan cemetery, Gaza City
- Sheikh Radwan cemetery, Gaza City
- Al-Shuhadaa Eastern cemetery, Gaza City
- Tunisian cemetery, Gaza City
- Church of St Porphyrius cemetery, Gaza City
- Khan Younis cemetery (Austrian neighbourhood)
Even war cemeteries dating back to World Wars I and II — including the Gaza War Cemetery in Tuffah and Deir el-Balah War Cemetery, which contain the graves of British and Commonwealth soldiers — have suffered significant damage from Israeli bombardment, according to local assessments.
Human rights organisations argue that the destruction of cemeteries constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law, which obliges parties to armed conflict to respect the dead and protect burial sites.
Earlier this month, Euro-Med called for urgent international intervention, warning that ongoing destruction in Rafah risks permanently erasing mass burial sites before bodies can be identified and buried with dignity.
“It feels like they killed her again”
For Madeline Shuqayleh, the desecration of al-Batsh cemetery reopened a wound she never had the chance to properly heal.
Her sister Maram and Maram’s four-month-old daughter Yumna were killed in an Israeli strike on October 28, 2023, in central Gaza. Madeline and her family were displaced in Deir el-Balah at the time and did not immediately learn of their deaths.
“Imagine finding out your sister was killed and buried without knowing how or where,” Madeline said. “It was a crushing shock.”
After weeks of searching, the family located the grave in al-Batsh cemetery.
“The tombstone was there. The grave was intact,” she recalled. “The pain was unbearable, but at least we knew where they were.”
That certainty is now gone.
“To this moment, we don’t know what happened to them,” Madeline said. “They deprived us again — as if they killed her a second time.”
Missing bodies and mass graves
The uncertainty faced by families has been echoed in findings by UN agencies.
In April 2024, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk confirmed the discovery of mass graves at al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, containing hundreds of bodies, including women, elderly people, and wounded patients.
Some bodies were reportedly found bound or stripped, raising what Türk described as “serious concerns” of grave violations of international humanitarian law.
Human rights investigators say bulldozing operations and military incursions have made it impossible to document deaths properly, identify remains, or return bodies to families.
“My father has no grave today”
For Rola Abu Seedo, grief has turned into a haunting absence.
Her father died on April 28, 2024, in Gaza City after months without adequate medical care due to siege conditions, famine, and the collapse of the health system. He suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, and complications from a previous stroke.
Rola and her family were displaced in southern Gaza and learned of his death days later, after communications were nearly severed.
“He couldn’t even charge his phone to call us,” she said.
A relative buried him in a temporary cemetery at al-Shifa hospital, marking the grave so the family could relocate his remains later. But during a major Israeli incursion in March 2024, bulldozers levelled the area.
“When our relatives went back, they couldn’t find anything,” Rola said. “The whole place had been flattened.”
Later efforts involving forensic teams and the Red Crescent failed to locate his remains.
“They dug exactly where we were sure the grave was,” she said quietly. “There was no body.”
Today, Rola’s father has no known resting place.
“We don’t know if they took the bodies, mixed them, or moved them,” she said. “It’s like they didn’t just take our loved ones while they were alive — they denied us the farewell after death.”
Grief without closure
As Gaza’s war drags on, families say the destruction of cemeteries represents more than physical damage. It erases memory, denies closure, and extends suffering across generations.
For many, the dead are now missing too — lost beneath rubble, bulldozed earth, and silence.
“Even the dead were not spared,” Fatima Abdullah said again. “What else is left for us to lose?”