As Gaza death toll passes 40,000, corpses are buried in yards, streets, tiered graves
With the death toll in Gaza surpassing 40,000 after 10 months of war, the small, densely packed territory is crammed with bodies
By JULIA FRANKEL and WAFAA SHURAFA
Published - Aug 15, 2024, 07:23 AM ET
Last Updated - Aug 15, 2024, 07:23 AM EDT
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tiers of graves are stacked deep underground in a bloated Gaza cemetery, where Sa’di Baraka spends his days hacking at the earth, making room for more dead.
“Sometimes we make graves on top of graves,” he said.
Baraka and his solemn corps of volunteer gravediggers in the Deir al-Balah cemetery start at sunrise, digging new trenches or reopening existing ones. The dead can sometimes come from kilometers (miles) away, stretches of Gaza where burial grounds are destroyed or unreachable.
The cemetery is 70 years old. A quarter of its graves are new.
