In Khan Younis, southern Gaza, the dead now lie beneath the open sky. With cemeteries destroyed or full, families can no longer bury their loved ones. A sign posted at Nasser Hospital’s morgue reads simply: “We inform you that we have no more graves.”

In a city under relentless bombardment, even final farewells are denied. By midday Tuesday, at least seven bodies were seen lying near the gates of the cemetery, wrapped, prayed over, but with no earth left to receive them. “The sun is now beating down on the martyrs,” wrote journalist Siraj Tabash.

“There is no place to bury them. How far have we come, world?” This is not a sudden tragedy. For months, Gaza’s burial grounds have been systematically desecrated. Israeli forces have destroyed nearly 40 of the Strip’s 60 cemeteries, according to local authorities. Among them was Al-Hajj Mohammed Cemetery in Khan Younis, bulldozed and stripped of its graves.

Reports confirm that hundreds of bodies have been exhumed and stolen, their resting places violated. With the last cemetery in Khan Younis filled to capacity, residents have been forced to bury the dead in hospital courtyards, public squares, even on roadsides.

There is no dignity left to death when there is no space left for grief. What was meant to be a temporary cemetery, opened during the war to meet the surge in deaths, lasted only a few months. It is now closed. The only cemeteries with room left lie near Gaza’s borders, in zones where Israeli troops control the ground.

Reaching them would mean walking into gunfire. This is Gaza’s quietest horror: a siege that crushes not only the living, but the very act of mourning. In Khan Younis, death no longer ends with burial. It ends with abandonment.