The remains of thousands more individuals are believed to lie beneath the wreckage of buildings destroyed and damaged during Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to authorities.
In northern Gaza, Palestinians are conducting funeral rites for roughly 100 people — including 60 children — whose remains were pulled from the rubble of demolished structures in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
On Sunday, family members transported the remains from Zeitoun to the al‑Ma’madani cemetery in central Gaza City for burial, as reported by Al Jazeera’s correspondent on the ground, Ghazi al‑Aloul.
For weeks, civil defence teams and relatives have been sifting through the debris of homes struck during Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which commenced in October 2023.
A significant number of the victims belong to the extended Malaka family, which alone mourns the loss of 55 members.
Al‑Aloul noted that families have endured a long wait to inter their loved ones in recognized, proper cemeteries. He added that the opportunity to bury relatives is not available to every household, pointing out that Israeli forces have demolished and excavated cemeteries elsewhere in Gaza throughout the conflict.
Al‑Aloul observed that, although the remains are wrapped in shrouds that resemble intact bodies, they are frequently only fragments.
He said, “These are bone fragments and remnants of personal effects that may have been found with the bodies, particularly among the children,” adding that no complete corpses have been recovered from the site because “the Israeli occupation has extended this process, and continues to impede its swift completion.”
Raed al‑Dahshan, director of Gaza’s civil defence service, informed Al Jazeera that his teams have drafted plans to recover thousands more missing bodies, but progress is stalled by a shortage of heavy machinery.
He stated, “We lack equipment, we lack protective gear” for rescue workers, speaking to Al Jazeera.
Dahshan estimated that, with adequate equipment, the retrieval of approximately 8,000 bodies still believed to be buried under rubble could be finished in about 90 days; however, he warned that if such machinery is barred from entering Gaza, the effort could drag on for years.
He said his agency has submitted a detailed inventory of required equipment to international bodies and would accept having that machinery remain under international oversight rather than under direct civil‑defence control.
He emphasized that crews urgently need large excavators, personal protective equipment, and specialized search tools to locate remains.
Regarding identification, he explained that teams depend on survivors and neighboring families to determine who was inside a building and where they were at the moment of impact, assisted by a group of engineers who sort and document findings in the field. He noted that the absence of prior warnings from Israeli forces before strikes means that ‘dozens, even hundreds’ of dwellings still require excavation.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territories, told Al Jazeera that the scenes underscore ‘the brutality of this conflict,’ observing that some of the remains date back to November 2023.
He said, “Thousands of people remain trapped beneath this rubble … We are discussing areas that may fall under Israeli military control, comprising about 70 percent of Gaza, where access to extract these bodies is difficult.”
He added, “Accountability must be pursued … It is vital that we preserve the evidence we have gathered during this delicate period.”
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 73,651 Palestinians have been killed and 174,592 wounded since October 2023.
In recent weeks, comparable recovery operations have retrieved more than 100 bodies from the Abu Shariah and Hassaniya families, who perished in a single strike, as well as over 500 bodies from the Al‑Taj tower site, according to officials and activists.
