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Deir al-Balah, Gaza – Before October 7, Saadi Hassan Suleiman Baraka, alias Abu Jawad, had a routine.
He would say morning prayers, eat dukkah and za'atar with olive oil for breakfast, and then head east to Deir al-Balah to tend his palm and olive groves. not anymore.
The 64-year-old man is an Islamic undertaker, a job he has done for decades before the start of Israel's war on Gaza. Now, the Palestinian father of 10 and grandfather of 116 is working long hours, burying more people in a day than he ever thought possible.
peace lost
Abu Jawad is one of the first residents of the Deir al-Balah refugee camp in central Gaza, where he lives in a small house with his wife and 104-year-old mother.
He is a simple, lively, generous man known as “the heartbeat of Deir al-Balah”, and he feels the disruption to his quiet life very deeply, both mentally and physically.
“I have lost 30 kilograms (66 pounds), have not been able to sleep, or eat at night since my burial. The images I see are… pure horror. “They won’t leave my mind.”
“I have buried about 10 times more people during this war than in my entire 27 years as an undertaker. The minimum was 30 people and the maximum was 800 people. Since October 7, I have buried more than 17,000 people.
“Every day, the cemetery is filled with people crying over the graves of their loved ones or near their bodies as they wait to be buried,” Abu Jawad said.
“Now, this is my life,” says Abu Jawad. “I work in the cemetery from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., sometimes longer. I prepare shrouds, build tombs, say funeral prayers, mourn and bury.
“There are 4 displaced individuals from Khan Yunis who assist me. What we do is voluntary, we have now been supplied cash, meals and help, however we search nothing from God besides our reward and mercy for the martyrs we bury every day.
“The truth that virtually all of our funerals are mass is totally heartbreaking; Most of them consisted of destroyed households. We put together massive household graves in anticipation of genocide. We’ve got solely two cemeteries in Deir el-Balah; “One is now utterly full, and the opposite is working out of house.”
'We’re useless'
The day a short ceasefire started in November, Abu Jawad remembers the burial of 800 individuals, principally youngsters.
“We collected them in items, their our bodies so stuffed with holes that it appeared as if Israeli snipers had used them for goal follow. Others had been crushed like boiled potatoes and lots of faces had been badly burned.
“We are able to't actually differentiate one particular person's physique from one other, however we tried our greatest. We made a giant deep grave, perhaps 10 meters (30 toes) deep, and buried them collectively.
“Normally we are able to write the identify of the deceased on their shroud, and their family members can come to wish for them. However these 800 individuals had no family members to fulfill them,” Abu Jawad cries on the painful reminiscence.
He describes how he has to intentionally flip off his feelings in order that he can full his every day duties of offering consolation to households as he buries their family members.
“For me, those that died are nonetheless alive and we’re useless as a result of we’re slowly dying. There is no such thing as a technique of life right here; No water, no meals, no electrical energy, no peace, nothing. Is that this any life?
“Nearly daily, I see somebody who doesn't go away the grave of their cherished one. I’m going away and are available again, solely to search out that they’re nonetheless crying over their deep loss.”
It isn’t a simple job for a household to carry their useless to the cemetery. There have been many stories of individuals burying their useless in their very own courtyards as a result of they can not exit on the street with the physique.
“It takes days, every week, a number of weeks for a household to carry their family members to the cemetery. Typically it’s because there was no gear to tug the our bodies out from the particles of the destroyed home, typically it’s as a result of they might not discover shrouds or anything to wrap the our bodies.
“I’ve buried 67 individuals from my household; The toughest had been my cousins, with whom I used to be very shut. Their our bodies had been destroyed and torn into items. I couldn't acknowledge any of them.
“Regardless of the dimensions of loss and horror I see daily, I can not cease and by no means will.
“Cease this bloodbath! We wish a peaceable life. I wish to go to and from residence safely daily, and never must take care of hunger and struggle on the similar time.