In Gaza, a mass burial offers little closure and new questions

54 bodies returned by Israel as part of the ceasefire were buried at a mass grave site in the Palestinian enclave on Wednesday after health officials were unable to identify the remains.

Maybe one day, they will be able to put a name to the Palestinians buried side by side this week in the Gaza soil.

Palestinian health authorities told NBC News that each plot at the mass burial site in Deir-al-Balah would be clearly marked, so that a rebuilt health system might eventually help identify the remains — decomposing and in some cases apparently mutilated — that were returned by Israel as part of the ceasefire with Hamas.

The 54 unidentified bodies were laid carefully in a long line of white shrouds as Palestinians gathered around the grave site.

But for hundreds of families who had flocked to Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, where the remains were delivered, the mass burial brought little closure in their quest to confirm whether missing loved ones were indeed killed.

Israel said all the returned bodies belonged to combatants in Gaza, without providing evidence to support the claim.