KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Skeletons are neighbors for some Palestinians in Gaza who found nowhere but cemeteries to shelter from the war.

Gravestones have become seats and tables for families like that of Maisa Brikah, who has lived with her children in a dusty, sun-baked cemetery in the southern city of Khan Younis for five months. Some 30 families shelter here.

A blonde toddler sits outside one tent, running fingers through the sand. Another peeks playfully from behind a drape of fabric.

Nighttime is another matter.

“When the sun goes down, the children get scared and don’t want to go, and I have a few children, four small ones,” Brikah said. “They are afraid to go out because of the dogs at night, and the dead.”

The vast majority of Gaza’s population of over 2 million people has been displaced by the two years of war between Hamas and Israel. With the ceasefire that began on October 10, some have returned to what remains of their homes. Others are still crowded into the strip of remaining territory that Israeli forces don’t control.

Here and in other cemeteries in Gaza, there is life among the dead. A prayer rug hangs on a line. A child pushes a water jug on a wheelchair between the graves. Smoke rises from a cooking fire.

One of Brikah’s nearest neighbors is Ahmad Abu Said, who died in 1991 at the age of 18, according to the carving on his tombstone that begins with lines from the Quran. There is unease, a feeling of disrespect, at........

© The Times of Israel