At Mass Burial For Gaza Family, Sadness and Fury

A stream of mourners marched toward the hospital here just before noon, some bearing stretchers carrying the dead. Gray faces showed through white shrouds, one swathing an infant held above a rainbow of party banners and checkered head scarves.

Many of the bodies bore the yellow flag of Fatah, the secular political rival of the governing Islamic Resistance Movement, better known as Hamas. Gunmen from the various armed groups took turns using the mobile microphone, each celebrating their part in military operations against Israel.

Ceremonial gunfire crackled throughout the morning, a backdrop to the call-and-response that provided the narrative for the event that passed along streets cluttered with the rubble of Israel's recent operation. A hole in a cinder-block wall revealed dozens of men on their knees, praying as the marchers passed.

"Do you accept the solution of surrender?" the gunman in the truck yelled into the microphone.

"No!" the crowd answered.

Men, women and boys walked for an hour toward the agricultural college on the outskirts of town, pausing to pray over the dead at al-Ajami Mosque. Children clung to window grates for a peek at the mourners and shrouded bodies inside.

The procession ended at a dirt lot bearing the tread marks of Israeli tanks and bulldozers. Just days earlier, Israeli forces had used the fenced-in field as a holding pen for Palestinian prisoners, dozens of whom are now in Israeli jails.

Men and boys jostled to look into the grave, some perching in the raised backhoe used to dig the hole.

The voice that came over the speakers took several minutes to read out the names of the dead, each one ending with the same word: "Athamnah."