PALESTINIANS PREPARE TO BURY 105 KILLED IN GAZA CITY ATTACK

Gaza's civil defence said Palestinians are preparing to bury the remains of 105 people killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza City in October 2023. The civil defence said air strikes involving at least 20 bombs levelled the seven-storey Al Taj 3 building and destroyed other residential buildings in Yarmouk Square on 25 October 2023. Gaza's Health Ministry separately reported that Israeli attacks killed eight people and wounded 26 others across Gaza on Wednesday. Civil defence teams carried out the recovery operation at the Al Taj 3 site in coordination with an Egyptian committee, the civil defence said.

Civil defence operations director Abdul al-Majdalawi said it had been "impossible" to reach the bodies at the time of the attack, adding that machinery used by recovery teams had been "directly and deliberately targeted". One report described the Yarmouk Square recovery as the fifth-largest operation of its kind, by number of bodies retrieved, since the war in Gaza began in October 2023. Osama Sharaf said the attack killed 37 members of his family. He said teams recovered some bodies earlier in the war and found 16 more, including his parents, his siblings and his sister's son, on Wednesday.

Family members will carry coffins containing the remains in a funeral procession on Thursday, the General Directorate of Civil Defence said. Burial will follow at the Sheikh Radwan cemetery, northwest of Gaza City. Gaza's Health Ministry said Israeli attacks have killed 1,439 people and wounded 5,052 since a ceasefire took effect in October. The ministry put the overall Palestinian death toll since October 2023 at more than 74,040, with 175,168 wounded.