AhlulBayt News Agency: A 65-year-old Palestinian woman buried her husband with her bare hands after the couple endured two months under relentless Israeli bombardment and siege in their home in Rafah.
Aziza Qishta described the painful experience of laying her husband, Ibrahim Qishta, 70, to rest without any assistance, a proper shroud, or burial tools.
Ibrahim, who was blind and unable to walk unaided, was killed by shrapnel to the neck when an Israeli airstrike hit near their home in Khirbet al-Adas in early May.
For two months prior to the attack, the couple had been trapped inside their home, surviving on dwindling food supplies while continuous shelling and air raids shook the neighborhood.
Speaking to Middle East Eye, Aziza said that after Ibrahim was wounded, she carried him on her back to a nearby house, where he ultimately succumbed to his injuries.
With no help available, Aziza dug a grave near an olive tree in the house’s garden.
Without a shroud, she wrapped her husband's body in a window curtain and rolled him into the grave by herself.
“I placed his body in a plastic bag, covered him with a zinc sheet, wood, and soil,” she said. “I recited Quran over him and wept silently.”
After the burial, Aziza returned home, which had been reduced to just a single room and a bathroom.
Two weeks later, she checked the grave and found that gunfire had disturbed the burial site.
“His head was exposed,” she said. “My heart broke. I picked up his head, it felt as light as a loaf of bread, and placed it back in the grave. I dug deeper, added a new piece of zinc and wood, and buried him again.”
Facing Israeli Forces
After burying her husband for the second time and with no food or water left, Aziza made the difficult choice to leave her ruined home and confront Israeli soldiers alone.
She carried a stick with a white cloth and two small bags as she walked toward a military checkpoint.
At the checkpoint, soldiers stopped her, ordered her at gunpoint to remove her hijab, and photographed her.
“I refused at first,” she said, “but when twenty rifles were aimed at me, I removed it—broken.”
She was briefly detained in a military jeep before being left in an unknown location. She wandered for hours before finally receiving help and reuniting with her family.
Aziza’s tragic story is just one among many emerging from Gaza, where, according to the health ministry, more than 54,380 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in October 2023.
Thousands remain trapped under rubble and on roads, unable to be reached by rescuers due to the ongoing assault.
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