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Mass graves, unclaimed bodies and overcrowded cemeteries. The war robs Gaza of funeral rites
The Associated Press ^ | October 28, 2023 | BY ISABEL DEBRE AND WAFAA SHURAFA

Posted on 10/28/2023 1:09:45 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

It was neither the place nor the time for a proper goodbye, said Omar Dirawi. Not here, in this dusty field strewn with dead people wrapped in blankets and zipped up in body bags. And not now, as Israeli airstrikes crashed around him for the third week, erasing more of his neighborhood and sundering hundreds of families and friendships.

Yet on this October week in Gaza’s central town of Zawaideh, the 22-year-old Palestinian photojournalist buried 32 members of his family who were killed in Israeli air raids last Sunday.

Dirawi’s aunts, uncles and cousins from Gaza City had heeded Israeli military evacuation orders and taken refuge in his home farther south. Days later Dirawi was unloading their bodies from the back of a truck, digging a narrow trench partitioned with cinder blocks and reciting abbreviated funeral prayers before nightfall, when Israeli warplanes screeched and everyone ran indoors.

“There’s nothing that feels right about this,” Dirawi said of the mass burial. “I haven’t even grieved. But I had no choice. The cemetery was full and there was no space.”

Palestinians say this war is robbing them not only of their loved ones but also of the funeral rites that long have offered mourners some dignity and closure in the midst of unbearable grief. Israeli strikes have killed so many people so quickly that they’ve overwhelmed hospitals and morgues, making the normal rituals of death all but impossible.

“We have no time to do anything and no space anywhere,” said 52-year-old Khalid Abdou from the camp. “All we can do is dig a big hole with our hands. Then we throw bodies inside.”

“In Islam we have three days of mourning. But there’s no way can you observe that now,” Abdou said. “Before the mourning ends you’ll probably be dead, too.”

(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: associatedhamas; associatedpress; asspress; gaza; hamas; isabeldebre; islamists; israeliranhamaswar; journalism; wafaashurafa; wot
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1 posted on 10/28/2023 1:09:45 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

AP=BS


2 posted on 10/28/2023 1:10:54 PM PDT by gibsonguy ( )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Leave them to rot in the streets for the carrion feeders.

L


3 posted on 10/28/2023 1:11:21 PM PDT by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is. )
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To: Lurker

Maggots and buzzards gotta eat, too.


4 posted on 10/28/2023 1:13:24 PM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Gee AP now speak about the 1400+ Israeli’s who were beheaded, slaughtered, burned alive, raped so badly their pelvis’s broke from their bodies..talk about that but they can’t since they hate Jews


5 posted on 10/28/2023 1:13:35 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Obviously they’ve mistaken me for someone who gives a crap.


6 posted on 10/28/2023 1:16:25 PM PDT by mass55th (“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” ― John Wayne)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Those poor breeders of terrorists

Same ones dancing in the streets for dead babies

Bomb them


7 posted on 10/28/2023 1:19:33 PM PDT by NWFree (Sigma male 🤪)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
There is a price to be paid for not leaving a war zone when you are told to leave.

There is also a price to be paid for allowing a political governing body that is really a terrorist organization to rule the land you live in.

There is a reason why refugees of war zones and failed states are often allowed sanctuary.

And finally, when the terrorist organization that governs you politically tells you not to leave a war zone because they want to use you as a “human shield” to protect themselves or to use your death as propaganda...........run with your family as quickly as you can. Huddle against what ever wall far away from the fighting you can find. Spend every Penney you have to get out of the war zone.

8 posted on 10/28/2023 1:19:49 PM PDT by Robert357
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Boo hoo.

Stuff the bags into your tunnels and seal them off. There’s plenty of graveyard real estate there for them.


9 posted on 10/28/2023 1:20:10 PM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Boo-freaking-hoo!


10 posted on 10/28/2023 1:20:13 PM PDT by quilterdebbie (We will endeavor to persevere!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Gee, I wonder if there was anything that could have prevented Israel from bombing Gaza, I wonder. /s

Gaza was a military fortress controlled by Hamas and was being used to attack Israel. What did they expect would happen, Israel would send them a sharply worded letter?

If any blame is to be placed it is with Hamas and those that support them (which is every individual in Gaza).


11 posted on 10/28/2023 1:20:38 PM PDT by CIB-173RDABN (I am not an expert in anything, and my opinion is just that, an opinion. I may be wrong.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Reaping exactly what they themselves have sowed.


12 posted on 10/28/2023 1:20:54 PM PDT by alancarp (George Orwell was an optimist.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I have a solution. Stop supporting Hamas, stop supporting genocide. Then the situation in Gaza will be a lot better.


13 posted on 10/28/2023 1:22:34 PM PDT by popdonnelly (All the enormous crimes in history have been committed by governments.)
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To: NWFree

Dead Jewish babies.


14 posted on 10/28/2023 1:23:10 PM PDT by popdonnelly (All the enormous crimes in history have been committed by governments.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

BFD. This and other articles are not going to wring one drop of sympathy for what Gaza brought down on its own head.


15 posted on 10/28/2023 1:26:52 PM PDT by lastchance (Cognovit Dominus qui sunt eius.)
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To: metmom

That’s actually an excellent idea.


16 posted on 10/28/2023 1:30:31 PM PDT by Qiviut (If the genocide were unintentional, they would have pulled the poison vaccines, long ago.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

32 dead is a good start.


17 posted on 10/28/2023 1:30:35 PM PDT by politicket
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Sucks to be Gaza.


18 posted on 10/28/2023 1:32:11 PM PDT by markman46 (engage brain before using keyboard!!!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
You just can't win with the LAAP-dog media.

Here's a memorable (to me) story from Iraq from 2007, As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch:

As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch

NAJAF, Iraq — At what's believed to be the world's largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn't good.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

Here is the original story via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20071117015617/http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20071016/wl_mcclatchy/20071016bcusiraqcemetery_attn_national_foreign_editors_ytop.

-PJ

19 posted on 10/28/2023 1:33:18 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Carriage Hill

20 posted on 10/28/2023 1:33:36 PM PDT by HYPOCRACY (This is the dystopian future we've been waiting for!)
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