Twenty-five days after the disappearance of their son Mohammad Abu Razek, aged 22, from Rafah in southern Gaza—which has been under Israeli attack since May—his family found his body almost entirely decomposed, showing clear signs of having been gnawed by dogs and cats.

Mohammad’s brother, Mahmoud Abu Razek, recounted: “Dogs and cats had indeed torn into my brother’s remains. I saw this firsthand after we finally learned where his body was. I couldn’t reach him or stop it, as the area where his body lay was extremely dangerous, and the Israeli army fires at anyone approaching.”

For eight days, Abu Razek tried to reach his brother’s body in the northern part of Rafah, near the border with Khan Younis, but was unable to retrieve it due to Israeli drones constantly patrolling the area.

With a face painted with shock, Mahmoud told Daraj: “I never imagined in my worst nightmares that my brother would die, and that I’d stand helpless, watching as dogs and cats tore at his body. How can this happen to the Palestinian people, and why does it happen?”

The family buried Mohammad in a black body bag at a cemetery in Khan Younis. Due to the body’s advanced decomposition and the visible bite marks from animals, his family was unable to give him a final farewell.

Mohammad is just one of dozens of Palestinians whose bodies, left exposed on the streets, have been torn apart by stray animals, according to testimonies gathered by Daraj’s correspondent in Gaza and disturbing videos documenting the incidents.

Hanine Al-Daya, a graduate of the Islamic University of Gaza’s medical school, lost her father in February after an Israeli airstrike on their neighborhood in northern Gaza. Thirteen members of her family were killed in that strike.

The force of the explosion scattered the remains of her father, her brother, her uncle, and other relatives across the streets, where cats found them and started to eat parts of their bodies.

Al-Daya shared, “I was chasing the cats in the streets to gather the remains of my father, my brother, and my relatives to bury them like other martyrs.”

In a state of shock, Al-Daya spoke of the horrifying scenes of cats consuming the bodies of her loved ones. She expressed feeling crushed, unable to sleep as she heard the sounds of animals feeding on her family’s remains.

In Khan Younis, near Nasser Medical Complex, Raed Hamad saw cats gathering around a martyr’s body, devouring the remains without pause.

Hamad was powerless to stop it due to Israeli snipers positioned around the hospital in March.

He told Daraj: “It was a harrowing sight; I never imagined I’d stand there, helpless, watching a cat tear into a dead body without being able to protect its dignity.”

Hamad endures long, heavy nights, haunted by nightmares of what he witnessed.

Following widespread reports and testimonies about animals feeding on the bodies of martyrs, a video surfaced of a young girl asking her pet cat not to eat her or her family’s remains if they became martyrs.

A New Behavior in Cats and Dogs

Since residents returned to Khan Younis in May, following the Israeli army’s withdrawal, they have observed a change in the behavior of local cats and dogs. The animals have become more aggressive, even attacking children in the streets.

Khaled Al-Dada, a resident of Khan Younis, told Daraj, “The cats and dogs in our area have become more ferocious and larger, likely because they were left without food during the city’s evacuation, surviving instead on the remains of martyrs.”

Every night, Al-Dada drives stray dogs and cats away from his tent in Khan Younis camp, fearing for his children’s safety as the animals’ behavior has changed drastically since residents returned to the devastated city.

Grave-Digging

Following the change in behavior among stray dogs in Gaza, including their feeding on bodies left in the streets, these animals have now started digging up graves in both official and informal cemeteries.

Displaced residents near these cemeteries have seen stray dogs at night digging up graves, attempting to exhume bodies to feed on.

The Missing in Gaza

Many people in Gaza are still missing, either killed beneath their homes or left in the streets. According to Gaza’s government media office, the number of missing individuals is estimated to be at least 7,000. These include individuals and families still trapped beneath homes destroyed by Israeli strikes, individuals killed in the streets whose bodies remain exposed, and others taken by the army while using a designated evacuation route from northern to southern Gaza.

Save the Children has estimated that approximately 21,000 children are missing in the chaos of Gaza’s ongoing war. Many of them remain trapped under rubble, detained, buried in unknown graves, or have lost their families.

Save the Children’s child protection teams report that the displacements caused by the attacks on Rafah have separated even more children from their families, increasing pressure on caregivers and communities.

The organization stated that gathering and verifying information in Gaza under the current conditions “is almost impossible.” However, it is estimated that at least 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated from their families, 4,000 are trapped under rubble, and an unknown number of children lie in mass graves.