The horror of Gaza summed up by the burial of four siblings

The scene needed no explanation.

A white shroud, rectangular and silent, lay in the middle of a small square crowded with weary faces. Around it, men lined up to pray, their eyes fixed on something that could not be fully seen, but only imagined. Inside, what were believed to be the remains of a mother and her four children. Four siblings who came into life after years of deprivation, then left it all at once.

The image encapsulates two years of heavy waiting in Gaza. Two years in which the story remained suspended between loss and hope, between unanswered questions and a small hope that the absent ones would return to be buried as befits human beings. Only today was the final scene completed: a funeral prayer that was two years late.

Gaza: four siblings buried together

In the front row stands the father, Fadi Al-Baba. Those who know him do not need to ask him how he feels. His eyes say it all. In front of him is the white shroud, inside which lie his wife and four children who came to him after a long wait. Four siblings, who were a promise of a life that would make up for years of patience, turned into a memory buried by Israel’s genocide under its rubble, before the earth returned them in a small white bag.

The loss was not a fleeting moment. It was an extended period of time. From the day of their martyrdom until the day of their burial, the father lived on the edge of absence; no proper farewell, no grave to visit. Today, as he raises his hands in funeral prayer, it seems as if that first moment is returning with all its weight. As if two years have shrunk into a single tear.

The white shroud in the photo is not just a piece of cloth. It is the final resting place for five souls. It’s a witness to a family story whose first chapter was never completed. It is a summary of questions bigger than a photo: How can such a long wait end in silence? How can a father say goodbye to his children together, after dreaming of them together?

The stories never end

The stories of Gaza never end, because they are never told in full. Every photograph opens the door to a postponed story, and every delayed funeral reveals a period of pain that remains unwitnessed. In this photograph, we see only a white shroud and a grieving father, but behind them lies a history of longing, deprivation and waiting.

The scene ends with a final burial, but it does not end the story.

Some losses are not buried, but remain alive in the memory of a father who, whenever he sees four children together, will remember that he had four… who returned to him in a single shroud.

Featured image via the Canary