‘No More Spaces to Bury Our Dead’ – Gaza

CrossFireArabia
News
July 3, 2025

Graves are running out in Gaza. The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in Gaza announced, Wednesday evening, that graves have run out in most areas of the Strip. It added this is amidst the escalating genocide carried out by Israel over the past 22 months and the rising number of people that are being killed.

The systematic targeting of civilians and the ongoing genocide is resulting in the depletion of graves in most areas of the Gaza Strip, the Ministry stated, explaining that the Israeli army completely or partially destroyed more than 40 grave sites across the Strip since October 2023.

The ministry stated the Israeli army prevents Palestinians from “accessing cemeteries located within its security and military control, which has led to a reduction in burial spaces, the depletion of existing cemeteries, and the exacerbation of the severe shortage of graves for burying martyrs and the dead.”

It explained that this comes at a time when the Israeli army is preventing “the entry of shrouds, building materials, and materials necessary for preparing graves, which prevents the burial of martyrs in accordance with Sharia regulations.”

In addition, Israeli evacuation orders have reduced the available land for burials, transforming it into a shelter for displaced Palestinians, according to the statement.

Consequently, the statement noted the accumulation of bodies of “martyrs” in hospitals and their courtyards, while schoolyards and homes have been converted into emergency burial sites.

It noted that with the worsening grave availability crisis in Gaza, the cost of preparing a single grave has increased from 700-1,000 shekels (one dollar equals 3.37 shekels), “burdening the families of the martyrs.”

The ministry is appealing to Arab and Islamic countries and entrepreneurs to support the “Ikram Campaign” it recently announced, to build free graves to honor the martyrs.

It also called on local and international relief organizations and entrepreneurs “to urgently intervene to provide relief to the families of the martyrs, work to build free graves, and provide urgent burial supplies, including shrouds, building materials, and burial equipment.”

Almost daily, activists circulate images on social media of the dead piling up in hospital courtyards as the death toll rises due to the escalating genocide.

Palestinians complain about the lack of graves to bury their “martyred” relatives, while some resort to opening old graves to bury additional bodies inside.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has waged a genocidal war in Gaza, including killing, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, ignoring all international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt it.

The genocide, with American support, has left approximately 191,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced and a famine that has claimed the lives of many, including children as reported by Anadolu.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

News

Punishing The Olive Tree

CrossFireArabia
May 25, 2026

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Israel’s government, soldiers and settlers destroyed between 13,000 and 14000 olive trees in the occupied West Bank in the first five months of 2026. The figures are based on different Palestinian and Israeli sources.

In May 2026 alone Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had ordered the uprooting and destruction of 3000 trees in northern Palestine. The uprooting of these trees were ordered to be felled in a single day.

In early February, 2006 human rights’ groups reported that over 8000 trees were destroyed and a report by the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Commission (PWSC) released last Mid-May showed that 4,414 had been uprooted, destroyed and/or poisoned.

The uprooting of “Palestinian trees” by Israeli settlers backed by the Zionist army has become a normal state of affairs as it has increased viciously since October 2023 when over 37,200 olive trees were “uprooted”, “broken” and “burned” in conjunction with the Israeli war and slaughter of Gaza.

The situation spelled disaster for Palestinian farmers. In cahoots with Israeli soldiers, settlers would go down on Palestinian villages and towns and start uprooting olive trees out of sheer vandalism.

At the end of last April, this is exactly what happened when settlers from the “Adi Ad” settlement descended on the Turmus Aya village that lies to the north-east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and started to destroy and vandalize 400 olive trees.

As they did this, on Saturday night, they were guarded by the Israeli army. This attack came days after the settlers descended on the village and set fire to a house and a car there.

The attack on Turmus Aya is not an isolated incident. The village has been targeted for the past few years. The PWSC, a monitoring organization of such attacks said the Israeli army had been responsible for 1,322 of such attacks while the settlers involved for 497 acts of vandalism on different Palestinian cities with Hebron topping the list at (321), Nablus (315), Ramallah (292) and Jerusalem (203).

Statistics point out that Israel has destroyed between 800,000 and 1 million olive trees in the occupied Palestinian territories from 1967 till now. However, since that year, when Israel effectively occupied all of the Palestinian territories, it destroyed 2.5 million trees.

Besides olives, they included orange (different varieties), lemon, grapefruit and clementine trees. The Palestinian territories are known for their varieties like almond, figs, apricots, peaches and plums trees.

These trees were destroyed by the Israeli occupation for basic military takeover to expand the Palestinian lands with Israeli settlements – about 147 settlements and 224 outposts – and create the required infrastructure and roads for these since some of them resemble big cities.

In the case of the Smotrich announcement for example, and the uprooting of 3000 trees on Palestinian lands in the north West Bank, the purpose there was to expand the Israeli Shaked Industrial Park which is next to the settlement there that has the same name.

Gaza, another story

Gaza is another sad story for the Israeli genocide has affected the whole of the agricultural sector. During the last war on the Gaza Strip, Israel destroyed 1 million trees according to Fayyad Fayyad, head of the Palestinian Olive Council. The destruction literally decimated the agriculture sector of the enclave.

Prior to 7 October, 2023, Gaza had 1.1 million trees roughly producing 50,000 tons of olives every year but no more. About 98 percent of Gaza’s tree cropland has been destroyed.

Dr Mazen Qumsiyeh, a biologist at Bethlehem University, calls the destruction in Gaza an “ecocide” as statistics show that over the past two years and more, Israel has destroyed between 500,000 to 700,000 non-olive trees.

Today in Gaza everything has been razed to the ground. There had once been 35 olive oil presses in the Strip but most of these have been destroyed with only five left as of the end of last year.

The loss of a million olive trees is a $50-million-plus-loss since the total olive oil sector (West Bank and Gaza) contributed between $160 and $190 million to the Palestinian national economy as a direct result of exports to regional and international markets.

The olive oil sector accounts for roughly five percent of the Palestinian GDP and 20 percent of the agricultural sector. Further olive oil production sustains 100,000 families in the Palestinian territories.

Marwan Asmar is a writer from Amman and blogs for crossfirearabia.com

News

Israel Kills 200 Lebanese Children – UNICEF

CrossFireArabia
May 15, 2026

More than four children have been killed or injured every day on average in Lebanon in the first 25 days of a temporary ceasefire with families still unable to return to their homes, said Save the Children.

New data from Lebanon’s Ministry of Health on Tuesday showed that 22 children have been killed and 89 injured since the temporary ceasefire started on 17 April. This brings the number of children killed in Israeli strikes since renewed escalation in hostilities in Lebanon on 2 March to almost 200 with about 2,900 people killed.

The violence and renewed displacement orders have forced more than one million people – or one in six of the population – from their homes with many now living with relatives, in host communities or in collective shelters.

The number of families living in collective shelters has increased 5% since the conditional ceasefire due to renewed displacement orders by Israeli forces and as families return home to find destroyed houses and damaged farmland so move back the collective shelters. There are now 44,800 children among about 125,000 people in collective shelters.

Thousands of children have been living in collective shelters for over two months in overcrowded conditions with inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities leading to reports of scabies and growing health concerns.

Parents are reporting widespread behavioural changes among children living in collective shelters due to a lack of routine and reduced school engagement including loss of appetite and trouble sleeping. Many children are struggling to continue learning with some schools used as collective shelters and also difficulties accessing online learning due to limited electricity, and poor connectivity.

Tala*, 10, has been living in a collective shelter after being displaced from southern Lebanon, said:

“I just want the war to end so I can go home to my village and sleep in my own bed. I really miss school, I want to see my teachers and be with my friends, and study and play again.”

Nora Ingdal, Save the Children’s Lebanon Country Director, said:

“This ‘so called’ ceasefire that still sees more than four children killed or injured every day is not a ceasefire for children. Attacks on civilians have not stopped – it has simply continued under another name. Colleagues have told me that the airstrikes feel more intense in some areas than they ever did before. Children are not safe until there is a permanent and definitive ceasefire with no violations.”

With further peace talks set to take place on Thursday to determine next steps between Lebanon and Israel, Save the Children is calling on the international community to urgently work toward a permanent and definitive ceasefire and ensure flexible and sustained funding to protect children and allow families to return home to resume their lives.

Save the Children has worked in Lebanon since 1953. In collaboration with partners and local authorities, we are distributing essential items in hard-to-reach areas in the south, provide psychosocial support for children, educate families and children about the risks of unexploded ordnance, ensure access to safe water and sanitation facilities, and distribute essential items for those displaced.

ENDS:

Sources:

Lebanon Ministry of Health

Israeli strikes have killed 380 in Lebanon since truce: Health ministry

Lebanon Ministry of Health

Lebanon-Emergency-Sitrep-23-2026.pdf