Thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza City's Sabra neighbourhood on Tuesday for what is believed to be the largest mass funeral in Palestinian history, burying 112 members of the Abu Shreia and al-Hassaina families whose remains were unearthed from beneath rubble nearly three years after an Israeli airstrike destroyed their homes. The victims — including 40 children, 38 women and seven people with disabilities — were killed on 22 November 2023, when Israeli warplanes demolished a residential compound in Sabra, a district of Gaza City. Their white-shrouded remains, draped in Palestinian flags, were carried through rubble-lined streets in a solemn procession before burial at the Baptist Cemetery in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City.

The scale of that single strike was staggering: more than 300 people were killed in the attack, with only around 40 bodies recovered at the time by survivors digging through smouldering debris with bare hands and basic tools. Gaza's Civil Defence teams returned to the site last weekend and extracted 112 further sets of remains, though 157 people connected to the attack are still unaccounted for. Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza's Civil Defence, described Tuesday's ceremony as unprecedented. "Today, 112 martyrs are being buried in one funeral for the first time in the history of the Palestinian cause," he said, adding that teams estimate more than 8,000 bodies remain buried under destroyed buildings across Gaza. Recovery efforts are hampered by the scale of destruction and a lack of specialised equipment, with some remains so fragmented or decomposed as to be unidentifiable.

For surviving relatives, the funeral brought an agonising renewal of grief rather than closure. Lara Abu Shreia, 39, lost 14 members of her immediate family in the strike, including her mother, eight siblings, and several nieces and nephews. Displaced to southern Gaza at the time, she had been unable to reach them when communication went silent the night of the attack. When she returned to Sabra in January 2025, she found only destruction. "Today felt like the first day I lost them," she said at the funeral. "I wanted to hug whatever remained of them." Her relative Ali Abu Shreia lost two brothers and their entire families — wives and children — in the same strike, describing the victims as ordinary business owners and community members. "Seven families were completely erased from the civil registry," he said.

The funeral took place against the backdrop of a deeply unresolved conflict. A ceasefire established in October 2025 has not stopped Israeli military strikes, which have killed more than 1,250 Palestinians since it came into effect. At least 26 Palestinians were killed over the preceding weekend alone, days after US President Donald Trump hailed a new phase-two deal as a "historic agreement." Senior Hamas officials have said the group's disarmament — a key Israeli demand — is contingent on a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel has cited "serious security concerns" about the latest framework. More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

The recovery in Sabra has offered a measure of painful resolution to families who spent years not knowing whether their loved ones' bodies would ever be found. But civil defence officials warn it represents only a fraction of what lies beneath Gaza's ruins. Palestinian authorities estimate that as many as 9,500 people remain buried under destroyed buildings across the territory, and the head of Gaza's Civil Defence, Tayseer Aldahshah, has appealed for international coordination to allow teams access to restricted zones. "There are thousands of people under the rubble and we have a serious problem," he said. "We need coordination so our teams can work and recover these bodies to return them to their families."