After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble

In the ruins of his two-story home, 11-year-old Mohammed gathers chunks of fallen roof into a broken pail and pounds them into gravel, which his father will use to make gravestones for victims of the Gaza war.

“We get the rubble not to build houses, no, but for tombstones and graves — from one misery to another,” his father, former construction worker Jihad Shamali, 42, says as he cuts through metal salvaged from their home in the southern city of Khan Younis, damaged during an Israeli raid in April.

The work is hard, and at times grim. In March, the family built a tomb for one of Shamali’s sons, Ismail, killed while running household errands.