Ibrahim al-Lahham was overcome with grief after losing 17 members of his family when an Israeli strike destroyed their homes in Gaza. His anguish was compounded by the inability to give them the dignity of a proper funeral — their bodies dumped “on top of each other” in the back of a pick-up truck and taken away for a hasty burial.
Prayers for the dead, which included his brother, cousin and their wives and children, were recited not at the mosque but at the entrance to the Nasser Hospital morgue. Normally, Lahham said, hundreds of mourners would have turned out, with the names of the deceased inscribed on a tombstone and their grave decorated with flowers. But the Lahhams were denied these rituals.
“We’re still in shock,” he said. “We were deprived of the chance to give them a proper farewell.”