Civil Defense in Gaza: The missing persons file is the most painful

Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud al-Basal stated that the issue of missing persons and the recovery of bodies in the Gaza Strip is “one of the most difficult and painful,” emphasizing that thousands of Palestinians remain trapped under the rubble of buildings destroyed since the beginning of the war, with search and recovery operations almost completely halted.

Al-Basal explained to Al Jazeera Net that Civil Defense teams were forced to suspend most recovery operations in November 2023 after the Israeli army targeted their excavators, bulldozers, and heavy machinery, leading to a significant increase in the number of people still buried under the rubble.

He added, “Nearly two years have passed, and people are still under the rubble. We’re talking about tens of thousands, perhaps more than 10,000 bodies, still at the sites of the destroyed buildings, including children, women, pregnant women, the elderly, and the sick.”

Al-Basal pointed out that thousands of families are currently trying to recover the bodies of their relatives themselves due to the lack of resources. “Some succeed, and some fail, but the reality is that thousands of victims are still buried under the rubble.”

He explained that there are bodies that can be identified directly, but “there are large numbers whose owners can only be identified through laboratory testing (DNA),” stressing that the Civil Defense has recovered hundreds of bodies in recent months whose owners were not identified, and they were buried in “unidentified graves” in Deir al-Balah, including those who were handed over to the Palestinian authorities by the Israeli side without being able to identify them.

Al-Basal said that these victims “were buried with numbers after samples were taken from them, and they will remain unidentified until specialized equipment for genetic testing becomes available.”

He concluded by describing the dire psychological state of the families of the missing, saying, “Imagine a father standing daily on the rubble of his home, hoping to find a trace of bones or remains of one of his children. This is the reality of Gaza today.”