Gaza Bids Farewell to 105 Bodies Recovered from Under the Rubble of 'Crown Square'
Anadolu4 min read
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The teams of the General Directorate of Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip, in coordination with the Egyptian Committee and the Families of the Victims Association, held a farewell ceremony on Wednesday evening to bid farewell to the bodies of 105 Palestinians recovered from under the rubble of the 'Crown Square' residential area in Yarmouk Street in the center of Gaza City.
An Anadolu Agency correspondent reported that the farewell ceremony began after the Maghreb prayer and continued until late evening, in an open area at the destroyed site, with the participation of the victims' families and a number of Palestinians.
Civil Defense personnel carried the bodies and remains wrapped in shrouds and lined them up among the rubble of the destroyed buildings.
The teams arranged the shrouds in rows, placed flowers and candles next to them, and attached identification cards to the bodies to assist in the identification process by their relatives.
Families and children gathered behind the organizational tapes, while relatives of the victims stood to bid farewell to their loved ones after a long period of being trapped under the rubble.
On Wednesday, the Civil Defense Authority in the Gaza Strip announced the recovery of the remains of 105 Palestinians from under the rubble of destroyed homes in 'Crown Square' in the Yarmouk neighborhood in the center of Gaza City, after 17 days of search and recovery operations in cooperation with the Egyptian Committee.
It explained that the teams completed the search and recovery operations in Crown Square, after completing work in the targeted area.
This comes as part of the ongoing search operations under the second phase of the 'Recovering the Bodies of Martyrs' project launched by the Civil Defense on July 19, with the aim of recovering the remains of the missing buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel, despite the limited capabilities and mechanisms available to the teams.
Mahmoud Bassel, spokesperson for the Civil Defense in Gaza, told Anadolu Agency that the funeral ceremony comes after 'painful and harsh times', with the recovery of the bodies of 105 Palestinians from the 'Crown' residential area.
Bassel added: 'These victims were extracted with strenuous and long efforts by our teams in cooperation with our brothers in Egypt'.
He continued: 'We address our humanitarian appeal to the world; these are civilians and human beings who have the full right to live in peace and security and to obtain the basic necessities of life that they were deprived of due to the Israeli war'.
The spokesperson for the Civil Defense renewed the call for 'the protection of citizens within the Gaza Strip'.
In a moving testimony, Palestinian Tawheed Al-Hanawi, the mother of Dr. Aliaa Ramzi Al-Hanawi, said that her daughter was killed along with her husband and four children, indicating that her family was 'completely erased from the civil registry'.
Al-Hanawi told Anadolu Agency: 'My daughter Dr. Aliaa was martyred along with her husband and four children'.
She pointed out that her daughter 'continued to perform her humanitarian and medical duty at Al-Shifa Hospital until her last moments before their home was targeted'.
The mother, holding her daughter's remains, added: 'Her memory remains present with us in every moment, and I used to constantly come to the site of the destroyed tower to call out to her soul and her children'.
She added: 'Today, the wound is renewed, but I have finally been able to gather their remains and bury them with dignity'.
Fawaz Za'tara, a relative of the victims and a survivor from the area, told Anadolu Agency that many families had fled to the area during the war after being displaced from eastern Gaza, hoping to find a safer place.
Za'tara added: 'We fled to this area as displaced persons escaping the heavy shelling in eastern Gaza, thinking that the residential building would provide protection for civilians'.
He continued: 'The shelling targeted the residential square, resulting in the death of about 300 people, and we were able to bury 105 bodies today, while there are still bodies and missing persons under the rubble who have not yet been reached'.
Za'tara explained that among the missing are members of his two brothers' families, saying: 'The families of my younger and older brother and their children are still under the rubble'.
Israeli breaches of the ceasefire agreement since October 10 have resulted in the killing of 1,431 Palestinians and the injury of 5,226 others, according to a statement by the Ministry of Health in Gaza on Wednesday.
Since October 8, 2023, Israel, with American support, has been committing a genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, leaving more than 74,000 Palestinian deaths, over 175,000 injuries, and destroying about 90 percent of the infrastructure.
