Displaced from his home, like most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, Ahmed spends his days at Tal Al-Sultan cemetery in the Rafah area, preparing rows of graves in the sandy terrain and marking them with cement blocks for lack of gravestones.
“As a human being who has feelings, it feels heavy to go from building villas and apartments, which I love, to building graves,” said Ahmed.
“My job was difficult, yes, but I’d go home with a sense of achievement. I made new things, every day a different building, a different decor. I went home in a good mood.”
Now, every day brings dead bodies and processions of bereaved relatives.
“I see different people but with the same faces, with the same suffering. It’s depressing,” said Ahmed.
“We have two mass graves here, nearly 80 martyrs over here, and 100 more martyrs over there.”
Hamas raises stakes in Gaza truce talks by calling for Ramadan march
Hamas called on Wednesday for Palestinians to march to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque at the start of Ramadan, raising the stakes in ongoing negotiations for a truce in Gaza, which US President Joe Biden hopes will be in place by then.
The call by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh followed comments by Biden that an agreement could be reached between Israel and Hamas as soon as next week for a ceasefire during the Muslim fasting month expected to start this year on March 10.
Israel and Hamas, which both have delegations in Qatar this week hammering out details of a potential 40-day truce, have said there is still a big gulf between them, and the Qatari mediators say there is no breakthrough yet.
Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem’s old city, one of the world’s holiest sites for Muslims and the most sacred for Jews, has long been a flashpoint for potential violence, particularly during religious holidays.
With war raging in Gaza, Israel has said it may set limits to worship at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan, according to its security needs. Many Palestinians reject any such restrictions on their access to the site.
“This is a call on our people in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al-Aqsa since the first day of Ramadan,” said Haniyeh.
Israeli government spokesperson Tal Heirich described Haniyeh’s remarks as “very unfortunate” and accused him of “trying to drag us to wars on other fronts”.
“We certainly don’t want that. We certainly will do whatever it takes to keep the calm,” she said.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas’s aim was to take pressure off its fighters in Gaza by forcing Israel to shift security resources to Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“We musn’t give them that. On the one hand we are operating against terrorist elements and on the other hand it is our obligation to allow freedom of worship, and I think we will reach the right arrangements that would allow that.”
Hamas, which precipitated the war in Gaza by attacking Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies, has said it will not free all its captives without a comprehensive deal to end the war.
Israel, which has assaulted the Gaza Strip, killing 30,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities, says it will agree only to temporary pauses in fighting to release hostages, and will not end the war until Hamas is eradicated.
