Gaza: one excavator to retrieve 8,500 bodies

Twelve-year-old Mohammed Riyad Ghabboun is waiting for a new home atop the rubble of his family’s house in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. He is also waiting for the remains of family members who have lain buried under the debris for eight months, hoping that civil defense teams will finally grant them graves after their long absence.

Just steps away, a single excavator is working tirelessly, searching for approximately 8,500 bodies and remains beneath the rubble of homes destroyed by the Israeli occupation army during its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Civil defense teams, supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, resumed recovery operations on Saturday with extremely limited resources, amid warnings that continuing at this pace could take years.

The recovery of bodies in Gaza had been repeatedly halted in recent months due to shortages of fuel and heavy equipment.

The last announcement by the Civil Defense in Gaza regarding the recovery of bodies from under the rubble was on May 12th. On Saturday, its teams began searching for eight missing members of the Ghabboun family.

The Israeli war of annihilation on the Gaza Strip, which ended with a ceasefire agreement on October 10, 2015, left more than 73,000 Palestinians dead and over 173,000 wounded. It also caused widespread destruction, affecting approximately 90% of the civilian infrastructure, which exacerbated the limited capabilities of the Civil Defense and hampered its teams’ access to thousands of victims trapped under the rubble.