‘I wanted to hug whatever remained’: Gaza families’ 3-year wait for funeral

Gaza holds mass funeral for 112 victims recovered after three years

Gaza City, the Gaza Strip – Lara Abu Shreia could not sleep on Monday night.

Every time she closed her eyes, she says, the faces of her loved ones appeared before her. So the 39-year-old turned to her phone, scrolling through photos as she prepared herself for a long-awaited farewell to her family.

In the largest mass funeral held in Gaza since Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians began in 2023, thousands gathered in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood on Tuesday to bid farewell to 112 members of the Abu Shreia and al-Hassaina families whose remains were recently unearthed from beneath the rubble nearly three years after an Israeli air attack.

When the white bags containing the recovered remains arrived at the funeral site, Lara stood crying, surrounded by other mourning relatives.

“Today felt like the first day I lost them,” she says. “It was a renewed grief, saying goodbye to them this way.”

It was about confronting the loss of almost her entire family. On November 22, 2023, a strike hit the family compound in Sabra, killing 14 of her closest relatives. Among them were her mother, Nawal; her eight siblings – four brothers and four sisters; as well as nieces and nephews.

At the time, Lara, her husband and their five children had been displaced to southern Gaza after a forced evacuation threat issued by Israel at the start of the war, which has killed more than 73,370 Palestinians. But other family members had stayed behind.

“While I was in the south, I was constantly anxious. I felt that something could happen to them,” recounts Lara.

Whenever possible, she would communicate with one of her sisters, relying on brief phone calls to reassure herself that her family was safe.

Then, one night, Lara saw reports that strikes had hit Sabra. She tried calling her sister, but there was no answer. She repeatedly sent messages, hoping the silence was only because of the severe communication disruptions at the time.

“I was worried, but I kept telling myself maybe the network was down,” she says.

Then her husband received a call. The family’s building had been hit, and “everyone was under the rubble”, says Lara.

With the world pulled out from under her, Lara tried to find anyone who could reach the house, rescue survivors, or confirm whether anyone was still alive.

“Sometimes I think maybe someone was injured and waiting for help. Maybe someone could have been saved. Sometimes I think about them suffocating under the rubble. I almost lose my mind thinking about their last moments,” says Lara.

For months, she remained unable to accept what had happened. When she returned from the south in January 2025, she immediately went to the site of the strike.

“I kept telling myself maybe they were playing a trick on me. Maybe someone was hiding. Maybe I will find someone we didn’t know about,” she says.

Weeks before the funeral, Palestinian Civil Defence teams began recovering remains from the destroyed homes in Sabra after long and complex operations. A total of 112 were found, out of 153 believed missing.

According to Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defence, more than 8,000 bodies are estimated to remain beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Basal described Tuesday’s ceremony as an unprecedented moment. “Today, 112 martyrs are being buried in one funeral for the first time in the history of the Palestinian cause,” he says.

Basal says recovery operations remain extremely difficult because of the scale of destruction and the lack of necessary gear.

“We need the capabilities and equipment to enter Gaza so Civil Defence teams can carry out this humanitarian mission,” he adds, noting that teams are continuing searches in other destroyed homes across Gaza, but not every victim will be recovered.

“Some bodies have disappeared. Some have evaporated. Some have been scattered into very small pieces, making identification extremely difficult,” he says.

For Lara, it was imperative to be at the site during recovery efforts, despite her relatives trying to stop her, fearing she would not be able to deal with the situation.

“I told them: ‘I want to see. Even if it is just a bone, I want to see something from them’,” she recalls, staring at photos of her loved ones. “Until now, I still cannot believe they are all gone.”

Lara’s 50-year-old relative Ali Abu Shreia was also displaced in southern Gaza when the strikes hit the family’s neighbourhood.

“The news began arriving: one house was hit, then another, then another,” he recalls. “I lost my two brothers – Ahmad, 51; and Moeen, 53 – and their entire families – wives and kids.”

Ali says he was told the attack on the Abu Shreia and al-Hassaina family compound unfolded in fewer than two hours. According to his information, the people inside the homes moved from one place to another, eventually seeking shelter in the home of Mufeed al-Hassaina, a former Palestinian minister of public works and housing.

“They thought they would be safe, but the war machine did not distinguish between civilians, homes, or families,” says Ali, describing the victims as “ordinary people”.

“Business owners, traders, people active in their community,” he adds. “Seven families were completely erased from the civil registry.”

Back at the funeral, men, elderly relatives and children tried to hold back their tears as the solemn procession began to move. From the balconies of surrounding homes, sobbing women scattered flowers over the remains and bid farewell to their relatives.

For Lara, the service brought a painful end to years of waiting – but it did not bring closure.

“I wanted to hug the bag,” she says. “I wanted to hug whatever remained of them.”