In the heart of Gaza, that city upon which the shadows of war have fallen like a cloak of ashes, the hospital morgue stands as a silent witness, but one that screams. There, where the walls bear the scars of absence, and where the smells mix blood and holy water, another chapter is being written in the story of death, which can no longer find room to embrace.

In that narrow corner, the mortuary is no longer just the final stop for the departed, but has become a temporary shelter for bodies exhausted by bombing and faces that left life without saying goodbye. Rows of martyrs stretch out in silence, and names accumulate in notebooks damp with sadness, without date, without age.

The martyrs are homeless in Gaza

The land was once fertile enough to bloom, but now it is weighed down by the weight of those who have departed, and there is no room to bury them. The cemeteries are now nothing but ruins, some of them bulldozed, some destroyed, and some besieged until they became graves built on top of the rubble of hospitals, as in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, which held more than forty bodies when the horizon narrowed.

Today, the morgue looks like a small theater for a great tragedy. There is a child who has fallen into an eternal sleep, a woman clutching her shawl as if to protect herself from the cold of the grave, and an old man lying as if he has finally rested from the fatigue of life. Every body here carries the story of a homeland, pain compressed in its shroud, and a silence heavier than any wailing.

Gaza, which is accustomed to resisting life, now resists a faceless death. Mass burials, temporary graves, and bodies waiting their turn in a final ritual performed hastily, because there is not enough time and the place is not welcoming.

In Khan Yunis, death is not the end, but another battle, a battle fought by Palestinians as they search for a grave for their son, for a patch of earth that preserves the dignity of farewell, for a moment of burial that does not end with bombing.

In this besieged city, martyrdom is no longer just a reflection of the struggle; burial itself has become another struggle, a struggle for one last right: to be buried as befits a human being.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

This post was originally published on Canary.