The remains of 55 Palestinians have been recovered from the rubble of a residential building in Gaza City destroyed in an Israeli air strike nearly three years ago, according to Gaza's civil defence.
The recovery operation, which concluded on Saturday, marks the latest in a slow, largely manual campaign to retrieve the dead from beneath Gaza's ruins. Such efforts are hampered by a chronic shortage of the heavy machinery needed to clear broken concrete.
Rescue teams said the remains were found beneath the rubble of the Malka family home, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported. Colonel Muhammad Abu Dan, who has been supervising the rescue teams, said they had been searching for more than 60 bodies of victims from the Malka family over the past 72 hours.
Situated in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, Israeli forces struck the building on November 19, 2023, as the family members sought shelter inside after being displaced from their own homes over the course of Israel's genocidal war, said Wafa.
According to the United Nations Satellite Centre, 82 percent of all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged during the war. Gaza's Ministry of Health, along with UN agencies and aid organisations, estimate that between 10,000 and 14,000 people remain missing under rubble across the territory.
Abu Dan has called on international humanitarian organisations to provide as much equipment as possible so that his teams can recover the largest number of people possible from the rubble, as reported by Gaza's Government Media Office. As most of the bodies have been recovered, a joint funeral procession is expected to take place next weekend.
The recovery operation took place after United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said there was no plan to force Palestinians to leave Gaza after two Israeli ministers earlier in the week floated proposals for the mass removal of people from the besieged territory. However, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have advocated for the displacement of Gaza's population.
Meanwhile, Gaza's Ministry of Health said hospitals in the strip received 17 bodies over the past 48 hours as well as 27 injured people. Since the "ceasefire" took hold last October, at least 1,344 people have been killed and 4,464 injured while at least 815 bodies have been recovered from the rubble.
The overall death toll since October 2023 has risen to 73,470, with at least 174,540 injured, according to the latest available figures.
Source: www.aljazeera.com