The Unnamed Graveyard: Where Gaza’s Missing Find Their Final Rest
Maram Humaid
Hundreds of unidentified bodies are buried in Deir el-Balah cemetery in Gaza, where families like Lina al-Assi search for missing loved ones lost in the Israel-Hamas war. The lack of DNA labs and complex identification processes prolong their anguish. For Lina, the numbered grave she tends is her only connection to her husband Jihad, who disappeared on the second day of the conflict.
Gaza Strip – Beside an unnamed grave, Lina al-Assi quietly picks flowers and waters the soil, believing it is where her husband rests. Jihad Tafesh went missing in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.
Lina frequently visits this site, one of roughly 1,200 graves holding unidentified bodies and missing persons at Deir el-Balah cemetery. The 26-year-old mother of two lost contact with her husband on October 8, 2023 – the second day of the war. Under a hail of bombs, Jihad, then 28, stayed at home in Gaza City’s Shujayea district with his parents, while Lina fled with their children.
“Shelling was everywhere; my area was very dangerous and near the border,” Lina recounts. That same day, amid the attacks, she searched for Jihad in vain. No concrete information about her husband’s fate reached her. “We contacted the Red Cross to check, but no result. We don’t know if he is detained, wounded, or dead. Nothing at all.”
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October 2025 allowed Lina to focus on searching, especially as Israel began transferring Palestinian bodies to Gaza under the agreement. The bodies were moved via the Red Cross to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. As of November 5, 285 bodies had been received. But identities are often unclear; many bodies are numbered, forcing families to identify them through clothing, bodily marks, or personal effects.
Lina also went to the hospital looking for her husband. “Every time an image appears on the screen, I pray he isn’t among them. The bodies are extremely disfigured, showing signs of trauma, abuse, some severely decomposed. It is another pain… to see someone you love in that state,” she says.
After more than two weeks of going back and forth to the hospital, Lina spotted a body that resembled her husband but she was uncertain. When she returned after two weeks of reflection to notify staff, it was too late: the body had already been buried.
Deir el-Balah cemetery was established in October 2025, called the “cemetery of the missing” or “numbered graves cemetery.” Mr. Ziad Obaid, head of the cemetery department of Gaza’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, says the cemetery arose from an urgent need for burial sites as most cemeteries in Gaza City and the north were closed or inaccessible.
According to Obaid, bodies come from many places: exhumed from rubble, streets, hospital yards, schools – where they were temporarily buried during attacks – or via Red Cross transfers. Every day, more bodies arrive from across Gaza.
“The main challenge is not just the number of bodies, but their condition: many arrive severely decomposed or disfigured, making visual identification nearly impossible,” Obaid says. Even when Israel occasionally sends DNA codes with bodies, these codes are mostly useless because Gaza lacks a laboratory for genetic testing or matching samples with families of the missing.
Under the procedure, bodies are transferred from the Red Cross to major hospitals, where forensic teams photograph, sample, and store personal effects. Each body is assigned a unique code by the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Religious Affairs. Within 6-10 days, bodies are displayed in hospital rooms for family identification, then buried if unidentified.
Obaid highlights complicating factors such as Israel exhuming Palestinian bodies or transferring body parts instead of entire remains. “The lack of DNA facilities and delays in identification are deepening the humanitarian and psychological crisis for families, who are caught between hope and grief,” he says.
Herbert Mushumba, a forensic expert for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), admits a critical gap: Gaza has no DNA analysis facility. Collected samples are currently preserved with ICRC support, awaiting future analysis capability. The ICRC says Deir el-Balah cemetery has about 1,400 graves, of which around 350 are empty.
For Lina, the graveyard has become a refuge. “The hardest feeling is when a loved one is buried as a nameless person, without a name, without official identification, only under a number… the deep pain remains in my heart,” she says beside the numbered grave she believes is her husband’s. “All I want is for my husband to have a named grave, so I can visit him with our children whenever we want.”
