The growing death toll from Israel’s military offensive at Gaza Strip it is a harsh, everyday reality for Ibrahim Ahmed: instead of building houses, as he did before the war, he digs graves.

Displaced himself, like most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, Ahmed spends his days in the Tal Al-Sultan cemetery in the Rafah area. preparing rows of graves in the sandy soil and marking them with cement blocks as there are no tombstones.

“As a human being with feelings, it is too heavy for someone who used to build villas and apartmentswhich I love very much, to open graves now”Ahmed said.

“My work was hard, yes, but I came home with a sense of accomplishment. I made new things, every day a different building, a different decoration. I was going home in a good mood.”

Now, every day brings corpses and memorial services from relatives.

“We have two mass graves herealmost 80 witnesses here and another 100 witnesses there.”

The war began on October 7 when gunmen from the Islamist organization Hamaswhich has controlled Gaza since 2007, they attacked southern Israelkilling 1,200 people and taking 253 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Israelwho vowed to eliminate Hamas, retaliated with an air and ground offensive that has flattened most of the Palestinian territory.

The Gaza Ministry of Health announced today that at least 30,035 Palestinians have been killed and 70,457 wounded in Israeli strikes in Gaza since October 7.

“The number continues to rise. I wish I could stop doing this job”stated Ahmed.

With the certainty that there will be more dead, Ahmed and other volunteers are preparing rows of new graves.

“I wish this war would end so we don’t have to dig any more graves, but instead to build this country, to rebuild it”he stated.