I am slowly working my way through Samar Yazbek’s Your Presence is a Danger to Your Life, a brutal compilation of recollections by survivors of the genocide in Gaza, every account more horrific than the one before.

There are two recollections that have stuck with me; about the “parts of people buried while they are still alive.”

“Our relatives took my daughter's leg and buried it in the graveyard. They did it out of care for me, they were trying to spare me this situation, but the leg was buried at random between the graves of two people we don't know.

To my relatives it was just a girl's leg, but it was part of my daughter, part of my beloved daughter who is still alive.

It's odd that parts of people are buried while they are still alive. We brought my daughter's leg and buried it next to her brother and sister. Family has to stay together.” - Samir al-Agha (Abu Yahya), 54 years old, Khan Younis

“My severed limbs were left behind at the site of the explosion - both feet, a hand and some fingers of the other hand. I learned later that my cousin visited the bombsite, found three of my body parts and then buried them, but I don't know where. It seems impossible that I ever will know - after the army of occupation destroyed the hospitals, it headed to the graveyards and dug them up and took the bodies. They destroyed any hope I had of visiting the buried half of my body. But perhaps someday, when I go back to Gaza, I will be able to search for that half.” - Ibrahim Qudaih, 21 years old, Khan Younis