Saadi Baraka wakes up at dawn and works until dusk, digging on his knees in the dirt while trying to bury the dead of Gaza with dignity in a cemetery he says is no longer spacious enough. The cemetery in Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip has been expanded several times in recent months to accommodate the never-ending influx of corpses. Baraka says he has "buried 16,880 people since Israel launched its attack on Gaza in response to Hamas's attack on October 7," which is more than half of the fatalities reported by the health ministry in the sector, which is 30,631. Israel estimates that about ten thousand of the dead are Hamas fighters. Baraka said: "I come to the cemetery at 6 a.m. and stay until 6 p.m. preparing graves for 30 or 40 people... I have built 167 mass graves. I only wish they would send us some tiles and cement so we could bury people with dignity."
Baraka, 64, was a grave digger long before October 7. But he says that "the atrocities he has witnessed since then, children dismembered, entire families buried together, and graves filled with dozens of people each, have been hard to comprehend." He said, "I try to sleep, and I swear I can't even if I take 2 kilos of sleeping pills." Baraka estimates that about 85% of those he has buried were women and children. "They killed all the women. They all died because they were the ones who stayed at home."
Among the thousands of corpses flowing into his cemetery, he claimed that he has not buried more than three Hamas fighters. He stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "lies when he says he is killing Hamas." While Baraka and his men work, they are surrounded by the buzz of Israeli drones and the rancid smell of death. He says, "Of course there is a smell; these are mass graves." He remembers many of the dead by name, pointing to some: "This is the Al-Laghi family, this is the Abu Hasnine family, these are the Abu Hatab."
While many of the dead were killed due to Israeli airstrikes, which have been hitting Gaza for nearly five months, many are now dying from hunger, according to the World Health Organization. A WHO team reported on Monday that it found "acute levels of malnutrition, children dying from hunger, and a severe shortage of fuel, food, and medical supplies, along with destroyed hospital buildings" during a recent visit to northern Gaza. This warning came just days after dozens of Palestinians were killed while trying to access food in Gaza City on Thursday. At least 118 people were killed and 760 others injured in an incident where Israeli army forces used live ammunition while desperate starving Palestinian civilians gathered around food aid trucks, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
After the incident, the United States, for the first time, dropped humanitarian aid over Gaza. More than 38,000 meals were dropped on Saturday along the Gaza coast in a joint operation conducted by U.S. Air Force and the Royal Jordanian Air Force. An additional 36,800 meals were dropped on Tuesday, according to U.S. Central Command. However, Baraka rejected the operations, describing them as a political stunt. He said, "We don't want them to drop fast food from planes. They are just showing off."
