Abdul Raheem Hawila's 16-year-old nephew, Ishmail, was killed by Israeli shells near his home in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The boy should have been buried in the spacious Eastern cemetery outside Gaza City, but the presence of Israeli troops made it impossible. Instead, he had to be buried in an old cemetery that was filled and closed many years ago. “There was no room in the old cemetery. We had to bury him on top of his grandfather who died 25 years ago,” said Mr Hawila. “Moreover we could find no cement or tiles to re-cover the grave. We didn't even open a mourning house.”
To the traumatised Palestinians of the Gaza Strip it is bad enough that their friends and relatives are being killed in such numbers - more than 900 at the last count. What is worse is that they can no longer give them proper funerals. In northern Gaza, because the Eastern cemetery is no longer accessible, the bereaved are having to search for plots between the existing graves in the older, full-up cemeteries to bury their loved ones, or to reopen and reuse the graves of their forebears.
Mr Hawila said that in Jabaliya there had been instances where several children from different families were buried in one mass grave. Islam decrees that the dead should be buried as soon as possible, but the Israeli bombardment makes delays inevitable.
Palestinian families also open their homes and erect tents for as many as three days of mourning, during which they welcome and feed hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people who come to pay their respects to the dead. Not any longer. Mourners cannot be contacted, cannot travel or simply do not dare to attend large gatherings while the bombardment continues.
Gazans say that at least one crowd of mourners was hit by an Israeli strike in the town of Beit Hanoun on the third day of the war. Several were killed or lost limbs.
“It's very hard to bury someone without people around you,” said Mohammed Rafiq, 50, whose 15-year-old nephew was killed by an Israeli shell. “They give you solidarity. It makes it easier for you to bear the death. When they're not there it's much harder to bear the pain.”