Mahmoud Nabhan, a man in his sixties from Bir an-Naaja in northern Gaza, was able on Sunday to bury 17 relatives, including his seven children and grandchildren, after Civil Defence teams recovered their remains from the rubble of his home, more than three years after the Israeli regime's war on Gaza began in October 2023. Among those killed was his 45-day-old grandchild, and Nabhan said there had been no fighters, soldiers or captives inside the home when it was struck. The recovery brought relief but also reopened wounds, he said, because it felt as though his loved ones had been killed again.
Key Takeaways: Civil Defence teams recovered the remains of 69 Palestinians from Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahiya in recent days, while more than 8,000 bodies are estimated to remain under rubble across Gaza and the total number of missing Palestinians is believed to exceed 10,000. The Palestinian Civil Defence says the ongoing Israeli regime siege has left teams with limited resources, often forcing manual excavation. The October 2025 truce between the Israeli regime and Hamas, repeatedly broken by the Israeli regime, has allowed only partial recovery of bodies from the rubble.
The Israeli regime's war on Gaza killed at least 73,600 people, damaged 82 percent of structures and destroyed two-thirds of them through waves of air strikes and shelling, leaving thousands of bodies beneath collapsed buildings. Continued attacks by Israeli regime forces often made it too dangerous for families or Civil Defence teams to retrieve remains, while the siege restricted heavy machinery and equipment. For many families, the recent operations ended years of uncertainty after repeated follow-ups with Civil Defence and long waits for machinery capable of lifting collapsed multi-storey homes.
Nabhan said, 'All of them were children, all of them were loved ones,' and later, 'It feels as if they have just been killed again. The wounds have reopened. But, thank God, we now know that our children have a grave here, beside their siblings, and we can visit them.' Fatima al-Masri, 47, said her husband and 18-year-old son were killed in an Israeli regime attack in the Safatwi area in October 2024 and remained buried for two years; she followed up with Civil Defence every month or two, and sometimes weekly, because several floors had collapsed on top of them. Workers later found bone fragments, her son's mobile phone and the bodies and belongings of others who had been with them, she said, adding, 'Thank God, we found their remains and everything that was with them.'
The recovery operations are expected to continue as families seek graves and closure, but the scale of the task remains severe with thousands still missing and many remains unidentified or buried without identification. Civil Defence teams are likely to keep working under severe resource constraints unless access to heavy equipment and safer conditions improves, while relatives continue to press for answers about loved ones whose whereabouts remain unknown. The repeated violations of the October 2025 truce by the Israeli regime also raise the risk that recovery efforts could be interrupted again.
Source: www.aljazeera.com