On October 19, 2023, the bodies of seven small Palestinian children, wrapped in plastic and covered with sheets, were laid to rest in the morgue in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian civilians surrounded the bodies of the children.

   Palestinian civilians packed the morgue in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 19, 2023. At the morgue, the bodies of seven small Palestinian children, wrapped in plastic and covered with sheets, were laid to rest. The bodies were surrounded by a crowd of Palestinian civilians. Blood stains were exposed on the faces of the dead children, who appeared to be sleeping. Palestinian civilians watched from the periphery as the bodies of children killed in the shelling of the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces were laid to rest.　　

　In the aftermath of the Israeli bombardment, Palestinian residents dug through piles of shattered concrete blocks with their bare hands to find the victims. A group of men digging through the rubble in the flatlands of Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip in the Palestinian Authority found a Palestinian corpse first by hand and then another by hand. From the broken cement blocks and dust, they pulled up the body of 11-year-old Shira Hamdan. Her sister, 9-year-old Tila's body was pushed under it. According to Gaza health officials, an Israeli bomb attack on the night of October 17 destroyed about 15 homes in the area, killing at least 37 people.

　The men wrapped the children in flowery sheets and carried them to the back of a recovery truck. In a smaller truck, a body was cradled in the arms of one man still. The bodies were taken to the morgue, where they lay alongside a dozen other victims wrapped in funeral white cloths, and Palestinian families wept.

　The deaths of the children came as the war took a heavy toll on the overwhelmingly young population of the Gaza Strip. About half of the Gaza Strip's population of 2.3 million are children, many of whom were born during Israel's nearly 16-year strict blockade of the Gaza Strip. Now they have seen Israeli bombs destroy their neighborhoods.

　Palestinian health officials say more than 1,400 people were killed in Israel on October 7, when Israeli forces began shelling the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a Hamas terror attack that took more than 220 people hostage. At least 2,704 children were killed. An estimated 830 more children were still trapped in the rubble in the Gaza Strip. Of the 10,515 people killed in Gaza since the conflict began in the Strip, about 4,263 children have died, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on November 6.

Warning: Palestinians stand around the bodies of children killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in a morgue in Khan Younis, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)