The Dead Without Graves… And the Nations Watch in Silence

NYN | Reports and analyses 

Beneath the groans of the rubble, and on the margins of major headlines, Gaza cries out with a plea unlike any other. It is not a call for weapons or medicine, but for a simple and fundamental right — to bury the dead with dignity.

Under relentless Israeli bombardment, cemeteries are no longer enough. Bodies that once waited for hope now wait for a hole in the ground. In response, Gaza’s Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) has launched an urgent humanitarian campaign named “Ikram” — to provide free graves worthy of the dignity of the martyrs and victims who fall daily.

These are not dramatic lines from a tragic novel, but a documented reality — a severe shortage of burial shrouds, a collapse in the ability to provide basic construction materials for digging graves, and digging tools worn down from overuse in cemeteries more crowded than ever before.

“We appeal to Arab and Islamic countries, to people of goodwill and living consciences to stand with us,” said the Ministry in a statement, stressing that the need now touches every aspect of burial in accordance with Islamic law — from the shroud to the preparation of the grave.

Amid this tragedy, Gaza does not ask for much — only for the simplest thing that can be offered to a human being at the end of life: a place to hold the body, a hand to pray for mercy, and a shroud to provide the final cover.

Death in Gaza is not a number in a news bulletin; it is a full story that begins with the scent of dust and ends only when the body is laid to rest in a grave that honors its humanity.

But behind this sincere plea stands a bitter truth — an Arab abandonment that needs no explanation, and an official silence that borders on complicity.

Gaza is left alone to bury its children — not with the resources of a state, but through the determination of volunteers and the shrouds sent by merciful hearts. As the bodies pile up, so do the speeches at conferences about “solidarity” and “deep concern.”

As for international humanitarian law, it has become a faded joke in an abandoned courtroom — speaking of protecting civilians but unable to stop their killing, praising human dignity yet failing to provide a burial shroud. All that remains is dull ink on paper, used to decorate helpless statements that do nothing to change the reality of daily massacres.

In Gaza, blood does not wait for statements — it waits for a conscience that has not been buried with the dead.