When 20-year-old Omar al-Sawhi tried to bury his father in Gaza City, he found no affordable space. The cemetery was crowded with fresh graves, many identified only by stones and torn pieces of paper. Unable to pay for a new plot, the family eventually buried Mohammed in his own father’s grave.

This is what Israel’s brutal genocide has done to burial in Gaza. Palestinians are being killed faster than graves can be prepared. Cemeteries have been completely bulldozed, bodies remain beneath ruins, and families bury relatives beside tents and hospitals. In fact, Israel has denied Palestinians safety in life and dignity in death.

More Deaths and Fewer Places to Bury Them

Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. Thousands more are missing beneath destroyed buildings. Even after the October 2025 ceasefire announcement, at least 1,200 Palestinians have been killed.

Each body requires recovery, identification, and burial. Yet Gaza had only about 60 cemeteries before the genocide, and many were already close to capacity. Israeli attacks and movement restrictions have made much of the remaining land unusable.

Consequently, families must search for a grave while mourning relatives killed by the same military that destroyed the places meant to receive them.

Israel Has Erased Gaza’s Cemetery Map

Gaza’s Ministry of Endowments says more than 40 cemeteries have been destroyed by Israel. A wider assessment by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor examined 62 official burial grounds and found the following:

• 39 cemeteries destroyed
• 19 partially damaged
• Only four largely intact
• 93.5% damaged or destroyed overall

Every official cemetery in Rafah was destroyed. Moreover, all 24 cemeteries in Khan Younis were targeted, as were all 10 in North Gaza.

This scale cannot be dismissed as scattered genocidal damage. Cemeteries preserve names, family histories, and generations of Palestinian connection to the land. Their destruction attacks the dead and Palestinians’ historical connection to the land.

Gardens, Schools and Hospitals Became Graveyards

With established cemeteries full, destroyed or behind Israeli-controlled lines, Palestinians have buried relatives wherever earth remains available. Graves have appeared in gardens, hospital courtyards, school grounds, displacement camps and beside tents.

Many have no proper headstones. Families use masonry from destroyed homes, corrugated metal, or handwritten paper to preserve a name. Another Israeli strike, heavy rain, or exposure can remove the only marker.

Even one Khan Younis cemetery contained about 60 graves when the genocide began. It now holds approximately 6,000. At the height of the killing, a gravedigger prepared as many as 35 graves in one day. Whole families, including babies and children, sometimes arrived together.

Even a Grave Has Become Unaffordable

A prepared grave can now cost between 700 and 1,000 shekels, approximately $235 to $335. Families stripped of homes, work, and savings cannot afford it.

Some reopen an older relative’s grave, while others share burial spaces or leave graves unfinished because cement and stone are scarce. Israel has impoverished Gaza and made burial another ordeal.

The Dead Are Returning Years Later

Some funerals held in 2026 are for Palestinians killed in 2023. In August, Gaza buried 112 members of the al-Hasayna and Abu Sharia families, whose remains had been trapped beneath destroyed residential buildings in the Sabra neighbourhood.

Moreover, Palestinian authorities said the November 2023 Israeli attack killed 308 people. Of the dead, 153 remained under the ruins. Gaza’s Civil Defence workers with limited machinery spent 17 days searching before recovering 112 remains. Their families waited nearly three years for a grave.

Another funeral was held on August 20 for 50 recently recovered Palestinians from three families. Authorities have also recovered 529 remains from seven mass graves created in hospital grounds.

Thousands Remain Beneath the Rubble

Gaza Civil Defence estimates that approximately 8,500 people remain missing beneath destroyed buildings. Recovery teams lack excavators, fuel, forensic laboratories and safe access to Israeli-controlled areas.

Evidently, around 68 million tonnes of rubble cover Gaza. It contains unexploded weapons, possessions, human remains and evidence of how people were killed. Crushing or removing debris without forensic care can fragment bodies, erase identities and destroy evidence needed for future prosecutions.

Families may know where someone disappeared but wait years for a body. Without remains, there can be no final funeral, confirmed grave, or certainty that the missing person has been found.

Destroying Graves Is Another Form of Erasure

In January 2026, Israeli forces bulldozed al-Batsh Cemetery east of Gaza City. Exhumation of more than 700 bodies was also documented. Remains were mixed, and the landscape was altered so severely that families could no longer locate previously marked graves.

Cemetery destruction also obstructs the process of justice. When bodies are moved, mixed, or crushed, investigators lose information about identity and cause of death. The state responsible for the genocide is damaging the physical record of its crimes.

The Graves Will Testify

Israel has turned homes into tombs and hospitals into mass burial grounds. Yet every recovered name and makeshift marker resists its attempt to erase Palestinian identity.

Gaza may be running out of graves, but Israel cannot bury the truth. The dead remain evidence, and their families continue demanding the dignity and justice that were denied to them.

Settler occupation has been a long-standing mechanism of Israel to illegally occupy Palestine. For instance, in Fasayil, Israeli settlers diverted a spring that irrigated Palestinian fields. In Qusra, settlers surrounded numerous Palestinian homes and cut residents off from essential supplies.

These are not isolated attacks by uncontrolled extremists. They are part of the Israeli strategy to seize Palestinian resources, terrorize families, and make remaining on their land increasingly impossible.

The weapons include bulldozers, water pumps, roadblocks and an occupation system that protects the aggressor while restricting the victim.

Fasayil: A Palestinian Spring Becomes a Settler Attraction

For farmers in Fasayil, in the Jordan Valley, the spring sustained crops, jobs and household survival. Settlers captured that lifeline by diverting its water into a pool promoted as an Israeli attraction.

A pipeline belonging to Palestinian farmer Saad Nemer was also seized in June. Water that once nourished Palestinian fields was redirected towards the settler-controlled site while nearby homes and farms faced extreme shortages.

So, the sequence is deliberate. Farming becomes unviable, and families face pressure to leave. The emptied land can then be absorbed into expanding Israeli control.

Qusra: Besieged Inside Their Own Homes

In Qusra, south of Nablus, more than 15 innocent Palestinians, including two children, were trapped in three homes for nearly a week. Settlers blocked food, medicine, and other necessities while residents lost water and electricity.

The Israeli military declared a closed zone and removed a makeshift settler tent. Soldiers later withdrew, but settlers remained with chairs and blankets outside the homes. The Palestinian families were still besieged.

Palestinians were imprisoned inside houses they owned while Israeli trespassers occupied the surrounding land. Even US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a vocal supporter of Israeli settlements, described the perpetrators as “Israeli terrorists”.

His condemnation came only after international attention. It did not challenge the occupation system that allowed the siege to happen.

The Numbers Destroy the “Few Extremists” Excuse

By July 23, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had documented the following:

• More than 1,330 settler attacks across 250 Palestinian communities during this year.
• An average of more than six attacks per day.
• About 880 Palestinians injured, including 720 injured directly by settlers.
• More than 18 Palestinians killed in settler-related incidents.
• Approximately 160 water and sanitation structures damaged, destroyed or seized.

OCHA recorded another 38 attacks in one August week. In Tuba, Masafer Yatta, settlers injured five Palestinians and destroyed three homes, displacing 23 people, including 14 children.

Violence continues until communities become too isolated, impoverished, or frightened to remain.

Water Is Being Used to Empty the Land

Without reliable water, families cannot drink safely, cultivate crops, raise livestock, or maintain adequate sanitation. Attacking water ultimately damages an entire community at once.

Reports found average Israeli consumption at 247 litres per person daily, three times the 82.4 litres available to Palestinians in the West Bank. In Palestinian communities disconnected from the grid, daily consumption can fall to 26 litres per person.

Nature did not create this inequality. Israel controls infrastructure, drilling permissions and access to major sources. Israeli illegal settlers reinforce that control by attacking tanks, pipelines, wells and repair crews.

In January as well, settlers repeatedly attacked the Ein Samiya wells, damaging control equipment and cables. Workers attempting repairs were threatened and assaulted. The disruption affected a principal water source for about 20 villages and an estimated 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Ramallah.

Displacement Without an Expulsion Order

By June, more than 1,000 settler attacks had displaced over 2,200 Palestinians in 2026. Even Ras Ein al-Auja, one of the Jordan Valley’s largest Bedouin communities, was emptied after years of threats, livestock theft, water restrictions and violence. Moreover, about 600 residents were displaced in January.

Palestinian families may leave without receiving a formal expulsion order. They go because settlers seize grazing land, destroy water tanks, invade homes and threaten children. But then Israel portrays their departure as voluntary.

However, there is nothing voluntary about choosing between displacement and living without water, livelihood, or safety.

One Israeli Project Across Palestine

Gaza and the West Bank face different intensities of the same Israeli project. Gaza endures genocide, siege, and territorial fragmentation. Meanwhile, the West Bank confronts settlement expansion, military raids, settler terror and the steady theft of land and water.

Both aim to weaken Palestinian society and prevent a free, connected and sovereign Palestine. The International Court of Justice has concluded that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful.

Yet foreign governments continue issuing statements while Israel changes reality on the ground.

In a nutshell, a stolen spring in Fasayil and besieged homes in Qusra tell the same story. Settlers take the resource, the occupation protects the seizure, and Palestinian families are expected to disappear completely.

International diplomacy often assumes Israel might free Gaza once enough security conditions are satisfied. But decades of illegal occupation show the opposite. Israeli state policy weakened Palestinians, divided their land, and obstructed sovereignty while presenting every new restriction as temporary.

The latest and most heinous formula follows the history. Palestinians must disarm first, and then Israel may withdraw later. In reality, “later” means whenever Israel chooses. In fact, it is the architecture of permanent occupation.

Disarmament Means Palestinian Defenselessness

The US-led Board of Peace proposed a 15-point roadmap under which Palestinian groups would disarm in phases as Israeli forces withdrew. Hamas endorsed the proposed framework. However, Netanyahu rejected it clearly, declaring that Israel would not leave until Hamas was “genuinely disarmed”.

“Disarmament first” leaves Israel in command of the timetable. It can decide almost everything, including whether to accept disarmament. No fixed deadline compels its army to leave.

Palestinians will try to bring peace even through their remaining means of resistance while Israel retains its aircraft, artillery, surveillance, and control of Gaza’s borders. That is not mutual security. It is enforced helplessness before a state committing genocide.

The Map Exposes the Plan

The October 2025 ceasefire map left Israel controlling approximately 53 percent of Gaza behind the Yellow Line. Instead of moving towards the border, Israeli forces pushed deeper into the enclave.

By May 2026, Israel controlled an estimated 64 percent. Netanyahu then ordered the military to expand its hold to at least 70 percent. Boundary markers were displaced, no-go areas widened and neighbourhoods absorbed into so-called buffer zones.

The terminology hides the open theft. A “security area” can contain somebody’s home, farm, school or family grave. Once Palestinians are prevented from returning and buildings are demolished, temporary control ultimately produces permanent dispossession.

Additionally, Green Rafah follows the same logic. Israel and its partners determine where rebuilding occurs, who may enter, and which residents remain excluded. Gaza is being divided into controlled islands rather than restored as one Palestinian homeland.

Genocide Behind a Ceasefire Label

Israel’s genocide did not end with the ceasefire announcement. Between October 10, 2025 and August 13, 2026, Israeli attacks killed more than 1,260 innocent Palestinians and injured 4,152.

Israel attacked Gaza on 277 of the first 309 ceasefire days. Moreover, Gaza’s Government Media Office documented at least 3,795 violations by July 19, including air strikes, artillery attacks and shootings.

By August 13, the Palestinian death toll since October 2023 had reached at least 73,389, including approximately 21,500 children.

A ceasefire permitting killing, territorial expansion, and deprivation is not peace, but a quieter framework for destroying Palestinian life.

Gaza and the West Bank Face One Strategy

In Gaza, Israel uses bombardment, siege, military zones, and controlled reconstruction. On the other hand, in the West Bank, it uses settlements, checkpoints, raids, home seizures, water deprivation, and armed settler violence.

Both systems fragment Palestinian territory and make ordinary life increasingly impossible. Families are pressured to abandon land that Israel then brings under tighter control.

Treating Gaza and the West Bank as separate problems benefits Israel. Palestine is being dismantled through connected policies, one demolished neighbourhood, seized spring, and expanded military zone at a time.

Washington Protects the Occupier

Trump and Netanyahu held a 90-minute White House meeting on July 28, their eighth since Trump returned to office. Although it was reported that Iran dominated the discussion, no binding Israeli withdrawal followed.

Trump later promoted the disarmament roadmap as a breakthrough. Netanyahu rejected its central exchange, but Washington imposed no meaningful consequence. A Board of Peace official stressed that Israel would not have to make irreversible moves or rely only on trust.

Consequently, Palestinians received no equivalent protection. They were expected to disarm irreversibly while Israel occupied most of Gaza and retained the power to attack. American military assistance, diplomatic protection, and political indulgence allow Israel to reject agreements without paying a high price.

History Has Already Answered

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 while settlements have illegally consumed Palestinian land. Oslo was presented as a temporary route towards Palestinian self-government, yet occupation deepened, and settlements expanded.

Although Israel apparently removed settlers and permanent ground forces from Gaza in 2005, it retained decisive control over its borders, airspace, and coastline before imposing a blockade. Each supposedly temporary arrangement created another instrument of domination.

Today’s conditions repeat the method – delay sovereignty, create facts on the ground, and blame Palestinians for an occupation Israel intends to preserve.

“Withdrawal Later” Means Occupation Without End

Israel does not seek a free, united and sovereign Palestine at any cost. Its policies seek a weakened Gaza, a fragmented West Bank and Palestinians too isolated to resist the loss of their homeland.

A genuine settlement would require an enforceable Israeli withdrawal, an end to genocide, unrestricted humanitarian access and Palestinian sovereignty. Israel’s formula reverses every priority.

“Disarmament first, withdrawal later” is not an offer of peace. It demands that Palestinians become defenceless while the state destroying their homeland decides how much of Palestine they may still inhabit.