In the Swedish cemetery in Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, diggers are being forced to build “graves upon graves” due to the high number of deaths resulting from the ongoing conflict. ‘ go for ten months, and there is a group of them. working on preparing tight rectangular pits to hold future victims.
The diggers are working under the direction of Saadi Hassan Baraka, 63 years old, and he is now focusing his activities in this cemetery, which extends over 5 and a half hectares, from after the Ansar cemetery, “three and a half hectares of which. have become full of deaths.”
The two cemeteries are located in the city of Deir al-Balah, in the center of the region that has been bombarded by Israel for more than ten months.
Baraka explains that before the war, we used to bury one, two, or even five things a week, and today we bury three or two hundred things that the mind cannot imagine, and he confirms that he does not stop working from six in the morning to six in the evening every day.
Baraka, whose black robes were covered in dust from the dust raised by digging all day, leads a team of 12 workers, some of whom work on excavations, and others moving stones to prepare the graves.
He continues with sadness, “The cemetery is full, and I am placing graves upon graves, three graves on top of each other, and we are building a floor for the martyrs.” It proves that I have been digging graves for 28 years during the wars of 2008, 2012, and 2014, but I have never seen crimes like this war.
His trouble does not end with the end of his daily work, as the statues of the dead haunt him at night, drawing sleep from his eyes. saying, 47 women of the Tabatabi family were buried, including 16 who were pregnant.
Since the start of the war on October 7, 2024, Baraka confirms that he has buried two or three members of the Hamas movement, and the rest are all children and women, he continues angrily: If Israel has a problem with Sinwar and Haniyeh, may God have mercy on him, so why are they killing children?
It is certain that the Israelis want to exterminate all the Palestinian people.
Baraka’s assistants continue to prepare new holes in the few places that are still empty, sweating under the sun, surrounded by white tombstones, while colleagues who created the a row of concrete stones, and the price has doubled, according to Baraka, “from one shekel before the war to 12 shekels today.” As a result their factories stop working due to lack of electricity and raw materials.
Piles of soft dust bear witness to burials that have taken place in recent days, burials that have been limited to drilling workers.
Baraka explains that before the war, when someone died, about a thousand others would attend the funeral, but today, if 30 or 300 martyrs come, only 20 people will be with them, which is wrong -unfortunately, while the air above him is filled with the hum of the march, as if it reminds him that death is hiding in Gaza.
#large #number #deaths #Gaza #war #disturbing #graves #Strath
2024-08-16 14:13:22
