Nineteen Bodies Recovered from Rubble in Gaza City

Nineteen bodies, mostly women and children, have been recovered from the rubble of a destroyed residential building in Gaza City. The evacuation, completed on Saturday, is the latest in a slow and largely manual effort to retrieve the dead from beneath the debris in Gaza.

Gaza’s civil defence agency says the work is hampered by a chronic shortage of heavy machinery needed to clear concrete rubble. Mohammed Abu Dan, who led the recovery effort, said work at the ‘Karam’ building in western Gaza had concluded after four consecutive days of searching. He said medical teams and civil defence officers would now move to a new location in Gaza City to continue search operations.

Civil defence officials have repeatedly stated that their teams rely only on simple tools and exhausting manual labour, due to the unavailability of heavy equipment capable of moving concrete blocks destroyed by Israeli attacks. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 8,000 people are still listed as missing under the rubble across the territory. Since a ceasefire took effect on 11 October last year, at least 1,254 people have been killed, 4,121 wounded, and 804 bodies evacuated from the rubble, according to the ministry’s latest data.

The total death toll since October 2023 has reached more than 73,300 people, with over 174,000 wounded. This recovery operation follows a mass burial held in Gaza City on Tuesday for 112 people from the Abu Sharia and al-Hasayna families; their bodies were found in the rubble of a residential block in the Sabra area of Gaza, destroyed by Israeli attacks in November 2023.