Al-Saha Cemetery lies east of Gaza City, on a plot of land adjacent to an outdoor market. The landscape in the area is characterized by slopes and hills, making the graves visible from a distance to anyone passing along the street. The cemetery has existed for more than twenty years as the final resting place open to anyone in the community; my grandparents are buried there. But what caught my eye when I visited the market a few weeks ago was the sight of empty graves beside closed ones, all prepared with the utmost simplicity.
While the bodies of those killed during the war on Gaza continue to be buried at Al-Saha Cemetery, freshly dug excavations sit open beside active burials—graves ready to receive the next victims. When I spoke with two gravediggers who work at the cemetery, they told me that every day, they dig new graves in anticipation of more deaths.
The cemetery has become a place operating to the rhythm of war, where death is no longer an exceptional event but a daily reality that forces gravediggers to remain in constant preparation for the next burial. As the death count in Gaza continues to rise from military attacks, malnutrition, and illness, so too does the need for new graves.
When thirty-three-year-old Waleed Ramadan buried his brother, Muhammad, at Al-Saha last year, the surrounding holes left him feeling unnerved.
“I thought that saying goodbye to my brother would be the hardest tragedy and loss I would ever experience,” Waleed says. “But at the same time, while I was burying him, I noticed around four prepared open graves beside my brother’s grave, as if death were something inevitable, written for us every second. I felt that one of those graves might become mine within the next few hours.”
While Waleed and his family buried his brother, another group of people arrived to bury a relative. When they asked a gravedigger if they could use an empty excavation site, he told them they could consider burying Muhammad with a family member already buried in the cemetery; Waleed says it sounded like he was telling them there was no longer enough space to bury people individually.
“My heart ached, and my eyes filled with tears,” Waleed says. “I do not think there is anyone [anywhere else] in the world who could see one grave being closed while another is being prepared before the death has even occurred.”
A gravedigger named Ahmed tells me before the war, he would dig one grave every few days, he tells me. Now, he spends his days moving from one grave to another, digging with rudimentary tools handmade from wood that often break and need repair. The labor leaves him feeling exhausted.
The work is carried out under the scorching sun, amid the sounds of drones and danger coming from all directions. Digging takes place under the constant threat of bombardment. Yet, he says, the task is about being able to bury the members of the community and preserve the dignity of their bodies, protecting them from stray dogs and other animals. Digging holes ahead of time allows him to be present during the actual burial, and able to offer comfort and condolences to the family.
“What pushed me to prepare graves in advance is the dangerous situation in Gaza,” he says. “By doing so, I make sure that families can bury their loved ones and then return safely to their destroyed homes, tents, and families.”
Sojoud Alkhour
Tasneem’s grave at the Turkish Cemetery in Khan Yunis
The condition of graves and headstones built in Gaza since the war began have quickly deteriorated. Because the entry of construction materials, cement, stone, and digging equipment has been restricted, people in the enclave have resorted to using wooden boards, cardboard, and fragments of tiles salvaged from demolished homes to record the names of the dead. They write the names with ink, attach the markers to simple iron or wooden supports, and cover the graves with plastic sheets to prevent rainwater from seeping into them.
The scorching sun and heavy winter rains gradually decay the cardboard and wood and fade the ink. As a result, graves are eventually left without identifying markers, making it difficult for families to locate them. Sometimes, they’re only able to find their loved one by recognizing the grave marker of someone buried nearby who died before the war, and thus whose headstone was built with stone and cement yet to chip away.
I recently spoke with Aya, the twenty-five-year-old sister of my friend Tasneem, who was killed at the beginning of the war on Gaza. When she went to visit her sister a few months ago at the Turkish Cemetery in Khan Yunis, she spent several hours searching for the grave, to no avail.
“They had written my sister Tasneem’s name on a square piece of tile in red and placed it on the ground, securing it with cement,” Aya says. “Perhaps the ink faded because of the winter rain or the scorching sun, which gradually washed out its color. When I returned home, my mother told me that the ink had faded, so we decorated Tasneem’s grave with a few small plants so that we could recognize it.”
“I feel deep sadness for my sister and for her grave,” she adds. “We used to live together in our beautiful room and have so much fun together. Now, my sister is beneath the earth.”