‘I wanted to hug whatever remained’: Gaza families’ 3-year wait for funeral
Thousands gather for mass funeral of 112 members of Abu Shreia and al-Hassaina families whose remains were recovered years after Israeli attack. Gaza City, the
Thousands gather for mass funeral of 112 members of Abu Shreia and al-Hassaina families whose remains were recovered years after Israeli attack. 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.” For Lara, the funeral was not only about bidding farewell. 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. “My family disappeared almost in one moment,” she says. 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. But she found only destruction. The search beneath Gaza’s rubble Weeks before the funeral, Palestinian Civil Defence teams began recovering remains from the destroyed homes in Sabra after long and complex operations.
The BriefWire