Gaza Rescue Teams Recover Remains of 55 Family Members Nearly Three Years After Israeli Airstrike

The victims, all members of the Malka family, had been sheltering in the family home when it was hit by an Israeli airstrike in November 2023.

Rescue teams have recovered the remains of 55 Palestinians from the rubble of a residential building in Gaza City that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike nearly three years ago, according to Gaza’s civil defence.

The recovery operation, which concluded on Saturday, represents the latest chapter in a slow, largely manual campaign to retrieve the dead from beneath the ruins of the enclave. These ongoing efforts are severely hampered by a chronic shortage of heavy machinery required to clear shattered concrete and debris.

According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, the remains were discovered beneath the ruins of the Malka family home. Colonel Muhammad Abu Dan, who has been supervising the rescue operations, stated that teams had been searching for over 60 bodies of Malka family victims during the preceding 72 hours.

Located in the Zeitoun neighborhood, the building was struck by Israeli forces on November 19, 2023, while family members were seeking shelter inside after being displaced from their homes during the conflict, Wafa reported.

Based on data from the United Nations Satellite Centre, approximately 82 percent of all buildings across Gaza have been destroyed or severely damaged since the onset of the war.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health, in collaboration with United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations, estimates that between 10,000 and 14,000 individuals remain missing beneath the rubble throughout the territory.

Colonel Abu Dan has issued an urgent appeal to international humanitarian organizations to provide essential heavy equipment, enabling his teams to maximize the recovery of victims from the debris, as reported by Gaza’s Government Media Office.

With the majority of the bodies now retrieved, a joint funeral procession is anticipated to take place next weekend to honor the victims.

‘No plan’ to displace people from Gaza

The recovery efforts coincided with statements from the United States Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who asserted that there is no plan to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza. This came after two Israeli ministers proposed initiatives earlier in the week for the large-scale relocation of the population from the besieged territory.

“I can tell you categorically that there is no plan by the Israelis to displace the people of Gaza against their will,” Huckabee stated during a press briefing in Turmus Ayya, a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “Nobody is proposing forced displacement. The Israelis are not, and the Americans certainly are not. I know of no one who supports such a position.”

Earlier in the week, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz argued that there is “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir detailed a seven-year plan for expelling Gaza’s population through what he termed “voluntary emigration.”

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that hospitals in the strip received 17 bodies and 27 injured individuals over the past 48 hours, based on admission records.

The recent casualties include five new fatalities, one individual who succumbed to previous wounds, and 11 bodies recovered from beneath debris. Health officials noted that additional victims remain trapped under rubble or stranded in the streets, unreachable by ambulance and civil defence teams.

At least three Palestinians were injured in Israeli attacks on Saturday, including two in a strike on a beach in the al-Khalidi area north of Gaza City, and one in a targeted strike in the al-Sudaniyya area, northwest of the city.

Since the ceasefire was implemented last October, at least 1,344 people have been killed and 4,464 injured, with a minimum of 815 bodies recovered from the rubble, according to the Health Ministry.

The overall death toll in Gaza since October 2023 has reached 73,470, with at least 174,540 people injured, according to the latest available statistics.

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