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In Photos: Gaza Morgue Inundated With Bodies

Israeli shelling and airstrikes on Monday killed more than 22 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip.
Photos by Dylan Collins

At the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City Monday afternoon 10 people were killed in an air strike — nine of them children from the Abu Shafka and Al Maqdad families.

Residents told VICE News that a large group of children had been playing in the camp's playground when a missile struck. The narrow road and play area was left stained with blood, and nearby houses and cars were torn apart by the shrapnel blast.

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According to Palestinian reports, the strikes came from the Israeli military. This charge has been denied by Israel, and the IDF instead blamed the casualties on “failed rocket attacks" launched by Hamas.

Once again, the morgue at al-Shifa Hospital was inundated with bodies. At nearly the same time as the strike in the Shati camp, a concurrent strike in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City killed the Dhaher family of five.

Relatives scrambled to collect the bodies of their loved ones from the morgue in order to bury the bodies before sunset. Since the offensive began nearly three weeks ago, none of the more than 1,000 funerals in Gaza have taken place after sunset. Residents believe it is too dangerous to collect together after dark, for fear of being targeted by an Israeli airstrike.

A Palestinian man stands over a pool of blood in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City. The man holds a plastic gun that one of the boys killed in the strike was reportedly playing with as the missile struck.

A young man grieves the loss of a relative outside the morgue at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Men lift open a body bag to check the identity of a corpse arriving to al-Shifa Hospital Monday afternoon.

Family members collect the bodies of children killed at the Shati refugee camp.

A Palestinian employee at the al-Shifa Hospital morgue takes a minute to collect himself after documenting the arrival of a headless corpse.

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A relative rushes the body of a loved one to a car waiting just outside the morgue in attempt to bury the corpse before sunset.

Friends guide a grieving family member away from the Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in Gaza City.

The graveyards in Gaza City are running out of room. There is simply no more room to bury the dead. Monday afternoon, families had to re-open the graves of relatives in order to bury the recently deceased.