The Fajr Massacre: Every 70 Kg Bag of Human Remains Is Considered a Martyr

PALESTINE - ISRAEL, 19 Aug 2024

Tareq S. Hajjaj | Mondoweiss - TRANSCEND Media Service

A shroud covers the body of a man killed in the Fajr massacre at the Tabi’in School in Gaza City on 10 Aug 2024. The writing says: “head + parts, unidentified martyr.”  (Photo: Fatima Hassona/Mondoweiss)

The bodies of Palestinians killed in the latest Israeli massacre in Gaza were destroyed so far beyond recognition that doctors have only been able to give grieving families an anonymous bag of human remains to bury.

11 Aug 2024 – Zainab al-Jaabari, 79, sits a few dozen meters in front of the scene of the massacre. She is waiting for her family members to return from checking for her seven sons and grandchildren, who were in the prayer hall praying Fajr at the time it took place.

Her family members arrived to see the reality of the massacre with their own eyes: more than a hundred people were killed, and their bodies were now scattered and mixed in the prayer hall in the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City. It is possible their delay in returning now is due to their horror at what they found, or perhaps because they can’t imagine how to tell Zainab that her seven sons and grandchildren have been killed.

At dawn on Saturday, August 10, the Israeli army bombed a mosque while dozens of displaced people were praying the Fajr prayer, the daily Islamic prayer offered in the early morning. The bombing killed more than a hundred people, most of whom were dismembered or destroyed beyond recognition. For this reason the identification of the bodies has so far been incomplete.

The majority of the martyrs in this latest massacre are first- or second-degree relatives because the prayer hall that the Israeli army bombed belongs to a school housing displaced families from Gaza City. The decimated prayer hall belongs to the Tabi’in School, and is only used by the displaced people sheltering in the school.

At the time of the bombing the prayer hall was filled with men. Now, many women who may have become widows and many children who may have become orphans, are sitting in front of the classrooms that were not reached by the bombing waiting to be told the fate of their families.

The Israeli army said that it bombed the prayer hall because there were armed elements from the Islamic Jihad movement and Hamas there, but the displaced people in the school confirmed that there were no armed men among them. Hamas also denied the Israeli allegations and issued a statement saying that there were no armed men in the school.

“We live in the school, more than a hundred families, there are no fighters among us, there are no armed men among us, they are all children,” Zainab al-Jaabari told Mondoweiss.

“The Israeli army left us nothing; they burned the trees, destroyed the houses, killed the people, and destroyed the land; what can we do? There is nothing we can do; we are children and women here; we cannot fight. Have you ever seen a country do all these criminal acts? Have you ever seen people who have all these crimes happen to them?” she says.

“All we have is prayers; we pray against America that helps Israel to slaughter us, and we pray against everyone who watches us being slaughtered and does nothing to help us.”

“We no longer have anything, and there is nowhere to go; the only thing we have is the sea, and even there, we will find death.”

Al-Jaabari’s daughters went to the Baptist Hospital near the bombed school so they could identify their siblings. “I can’t move much. I sent my daughters to the hospital to check on the rest of my children, but none of them have returned yet; all my sons and grandchildren were praying at the time of the bombing.”

Hours after the massacre, the names of the martyrs who were identified were announced, and among the names were seven martyrs from the Al-Jaabari family. They are Zainab’s sons and grandchildren.

Every 70 kilograms of remains is considered a martyr

In the mosque, people stand in a row close to each other as they pray, and after the bombing, the worshipers remained intermingled as well, as remains and corpses. Large numbers of martyrs were not able to be identified, and entire families were wiped out.

Survivors of this massacre are describing a new and horrifying experience they are being forced to endure in aftermath of Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip: they cannot even identify the remains of their loved ones.

Because the rescue teams couldn’t identify many of the human remains collected due to the intensity of the bombing, the doctors at Baptist Hospital were not able to identify each martyr individually. Instead, the doctors have started collecting body parts in plastic bags and giving 70 kilos of remains to the family of a martyr who has gone missing.

Hassan Ahmad told Mondoweiss that he searched extensively for the body of his 6-year-old son Ali, and after hours of searching, he did not find a trace of him. He then went to the Baptist Hospital to ask about his son, or to find any part of his body so I could identify him and bury him. After a long search that did not yield any results, the doctors at the Baptist Hospital gave him a plastic bag containing 18 kilograms of human remains and told him, “This is your son; go and bury him.”

“I don’t know if this is my son or not, I don’t know what I’m carrying in this bag. They said he’s my son, and I don’t know anything, and I don’t see anything of my son in this bag,” Ahmad explained.

“I collect my husband’s body parts.”

Manar Al-Zaim’s voice is hoarse from screaming. She is still trembling from fear. Al-Zaim, 43, recounted to Mondoweiss how she rushed to the prayer hall immediately after the bombing to look for her husband.

“People were praying there; they bombed them with three missiles when the bombing started, and I saw the fire; I couldn’t control myself; my husband was among them. I ran like crazy to find my husband; I entered the prayer hall, and the fire was burning in it; I found a large number of young men whose bodies were on fire, I tried to put out the fires in their bodies, then I started looking for my husband, I didn’t find him, I found some of his remains and recognized them, but I didn’t find my husband in full.”

“We are all civilians here, fleeing from death, bombing, and destruction, we no longer have a safe place, we no longer have any place to go, here is the Israeli army killing hundreds in the mosque while they were praying, and what did the world do after this crime?”

I saw my father’s carnage

Muhammad Hamida, 12, recounted to Mondoweiss how he found his father, who had been torn apart in the Israeli attack. He says that he went with his older brother to the prayer hall after the bombing to rescue their father, who was praying at the time.

“When we arrived, we couldn’t enter because of the intensity of the fire, blood, and body parts, but we wanted to check on my father. Moments later, we could enter the prayer hall but we couldn’t bear the scene.”

“People were cut up, there was a lot of blood on the ground, and body parts and small pieces of worshipers’ bodies were scattered everywhere. We found my father lying on the ground there. We recognized him, and our relatives helped us drag him out of the prayer hall. We found a human head stuck between his feet when we took him out. I was stunned with fear. I have never seen scenes like this in my life. I hope I never see them again.”

“They will kill us all; we are here alone; no one cares about us. They killed my father, and a month ago, they killed my two uncles, and they will kill everyone who remains in Gaza.”

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Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent, and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union. He studied English Literature at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. He started his career in journalism in 2015 working as a news writer and translator for the local newspaper, Donia al-Watan. He has reported for Elbadi, Middle East Eye, and Al Monitor.

Fatima Hassona conducted the interviews for this report from Gaza.

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