Israeli Genocide in Gaza Claims Over 70000 Lives as Palestinians Bury Remains of 105 People Recovered From Rubble
Palestinians in Gaza City have held mass funeral prayers to bury the remains of 105 people recovered from deep under crushed residential buildings. Grieving relatives, community elders, and emergency workers gathered in a solemn funeral procession to lay their loved ones to rest. The somber burial took place as human rights organizations, United Nations experts, and legal groups point to the ongoing Israeli genocide that has killed more than 70,000 innocent people across the destroyed coastal enclave.
The coffins holding the recovered remains were draped in Palestinian flags and placed side by side in an open courtyard. Surviving family members wept openly as they recited prayers over their lost parents, brothers, sisters, and children. For many households, holding these final prayers offered a rare moment of emotional release after enduring three long years of agonizing uncertainty, unable to reach the crushed bodies of their loved ones trapped beneath tons of fallen stone.
Emergency rescue teams from the Palestinian Civil Defence recovered the bodies from the ruins of the Al-Taj residential block in the Yarmouk Square neighborhood of Gaza City. The neighborhood was leveled by a destructive wave of air strikes that completely flattened a seven-storey apartment complex and crushed multiple nearby buildings into piles of broken concrete and twisted metal. Local officials confirmed that among the 105 victims pulled from the site, 37 were young children and 38 were women.
Search crews worked for seventeen days to clear the heavy debris. Because continuous military bombardment, destroyed roads, and fuel blockades made it impossible to reach the site earlier, rescue workers had to dig through the compacted stone using shovels, pickaxes, and their bare hands. Following the service, mourners carried the flag-draped coffins through the streets to the Sheikh Radwan cemetery, where the victims were buried in freshly dug ground.
The mass burial in Gaza City reflects the wider devastation of a military campaign directed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Human rights monitors, international jurists, and United Nations special rapporteurs have repeatedly stated that Israel actions in Gaza fulfill the legal definition of genocide under international treaties. The International Court of Justice has issued binding emergency orders instructing Israel to stop acts that cause mass civilian deaths, prevent the deliberate destruction of living conditions, and allow unhindered food and medical aid into the territory.
International outrage has intensified as casualty records confirm that the overall death toll has exceeded 70,000 innocent people, with children and women making up the vast majority of the casualties. The International Criminal Court has sought arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense leadership, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the deliberate starvation of civilian populations and coordinated strikes on non-combatant residential districts.
Civil defence officials warned that this recovery operation is only a tiny fraction of the thousands still missing beneath the ruins. Across the Gaza Strip, more than 8,000 bodies remain trapped under millions of tons of concrete slabs and destroyed homes where equipment cannot reach them. Rescue squads lack heavy bulldozers, cranes, and hydraulic cutting tools to lift collapsed floors, leaving thousands of families without even a grave to visit.
Community leaders and human rights defenders continue to demand immediate international intervention to end the systematic violence, lift the border blockades, and deliver heavy rescue equipment. They emphasize that clearing the ruins and identifying the missing is an urgent humanitarian obligation, demanding that global institutions hold Israeli political and military leaders legally responsible for the catastrophic loss of human life across Gaza.