Gaza: Dozens of unidentified bodies buried in mass grave

(Patria) - The bodies of dozens of unidentified people were buried on Wednesday in a mass grave at a cemetery in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

"Since these martyrs had no one to bid farewell to, we dug a mass grave to bury them. They are unknown martyrs," Bassem Dababesh from the Emergency Committee of the Ministry of Religious Affairs told AFP.

The remains, which bore only numbers, came from Indonesian and Al-Shifa hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, according to committee members at the burial site.

The Indonesian hospital on the outskirts of the Jabalia refugee camp, which was hit by Israeli airstrikes, was partially evacuated on Monday, said Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Hamas-controlled health ministry.

A similar situation exists at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The director of that hospital, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said on November 14 that 179 bodies had been buried in a mass grave within the complex.

The bodies that arrived in Khan Yunis on Wednesday would have been in Israel before being handed over through representatives of "third countries and the United Nations," according to the Emergency Committee of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

There are thousands of dead in the Gaza Strip, and the issue of burial has shocked many Gaza residents. Since the start of the war, war victims have been hastily buried in private plots and even on a football field, as cemeteries are full or inaccessible due to fighting.

A week after the war began, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said there was a shortage of body bags.

Thousands of dead are believed to be buried under the rubble.