The operation, carried out on Monday in Gaza City, aimed to retrieve the remains of Ran Gvili, an Israeli policeman killed more than two years ago and described by Israel as its last captive in Gaza.
To recover the body, Israeli forces deployed tanks, drones and what local residents described as “explosive robots,” according to witnesses and local journalists.
The incursion focused on the al-Batsh cemetery in the Tuffah neighborhood, where residents said the area was turned into a “kill zone,” with at least four civilians killed during the operation.
Around 200 Palestinian graves were dug up in the process, according to a Gaza-based journalist who reported from near the site.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the recovery as a demonstration of Israel’s commitment to its dead.
By contrast, Palestinian officials say tens of thousands of families in Gaza remain without answers about their own missing relatives.
According to the National Committee for Missing Persons, more than 10,000 Palestinians are believed to remain buried under rubble across Gaza, unaccounted for and unidentified after months of Israeli bombardment.
Families of the missing continue to mourn without closure, with no large-scale recovery operations or forensic identification efforts carried out on their behalf.
International media attention and diplomatic pressure, Palestinians say, have largely focused elsewhere.
As a result, the exhumation of the al-Batsh cemetery has become a potent symbol for many in Gaza of what they see as a deadly double standard under Israeli military rule.
Witnesses describe overwhelming force around cemetery
Khamis al-Rifi, a journalist in Gaza who reported from the vicinity of the incursion, described the scale of force used to seal off the area.
“It started with exploding robots and air strikes … clearing the path for the tanks,” al-Rifi told Al Jazeera.
He said approaching the cemetery was impossible as tanks enforced a perimeter, firing at anything that moved.
From near the “Yellow Line,” Israel’s self-declared buffer zone inside Gaza, al-Rifi described a “wall of fire” created by artillery and helicopters to protect Israeli engineering units.
Within the sealed area, witnesses and later video footage showed forces working for two days to churn up the ground.
“They dug up about 200 graves,” al-Rifi said. “They pulled the martyrs out, tested them one by one until they found the (Israeli) body.”
After the withdrawal, the contrast in treatment became stark, according to residents and journalists.
Gvili’s remains were airlifted to occupied territories for burial, while Palestinian bodies were left behind at the site.
“When citizens went to the area (after the withdrawal), they found the martyrs put back randomly … covered with sand by the bulldozers,” al-Rifi said.
“Some bodies were still visible on the surface.”