GAZA CITY — Yusef al-Zaharnah’s eyes had been transfixed on the excavator’s bucket as its claws scooped into the rubble, hoping its recent load would finish 9 grueling months of uncertainty and permit him to totally grieve.
As soon as it disgorged its haul, Al-Zaharnah, a burly, weary-looking 56-year-old, climbed over the detritus and bent low for a better look. However his search yielded solely crushed masonry; no bones, and no signal of his son, or the others killed with him.
“If I see even a small piece, whether or not it belongs to my son or to another person’s, at the very least they’ll lastly be buried,” Al-Zaharnah stated, trudging again to his spot by the excavator to await the subsequent load and resume his search.
Al-Zaharnah’s journey of mourning started in October when an Israeli missile leveled the five-story constructing in Gaza Metropolis the place his household was sheltering with others throughout Israel’s struggle in opposition to Hamas militants.
Greater than 40 folks had been killed within the airstrike, together with three of his sons: Munther, 31; Mutaz, 26; and 21-year-old Abdul Karim.
He had managed to drag out the our bodies of Munther and Abdul Karim within the first days after the airstrike and buried them beside one other son, Munir, 28, who died in an Israeli strike in June 2025.
All I would like is to bury my son beside his brothers
— Yusef Al-Zaharnah
However Mutaz remained lacking, his physique unimaginable to achieve with out heavy equipment that solely just lately grew to become accessible.
“All I would like is to bury my son beside his brothers,” Al-Zaharnah stated, his voice quiet as he stared on the excavator.
For Gaza’s Civil Protection forces, Al-Zaharnah’s household represents a small a part of a a lot bigger disaster. Authorities estimate that greater than 8,500 our bodies — different consultants counsel the determine is nearer to 14,000 — stay trapped beneath 61.5 million tons of rubble throughout the Palestinian enclave, roughly 20 occasions the quantity produced by conflicts world wide since 2008.
Recovering them from some of the devastated locations on Earth — the United Nations says greater than 80% of buildings are broken or destroyed — with the meager assets available has been a frustratingly gargantuan activity, stated Mahmoud al-Basal, a spokesman for the Civil Protection.
“On daily basis, the Civil Protection receives dozens of calls from households asking whether or not we are able to search beneath the ruins of their properties for family members,” Al-Basal stated.
“For households, the lacking are usually not gone, they’re nonetheless beneath the rubble, ready to be discovered. It’s one of many battle’s least seen, but most devastating humanitarian emergencies,” he stated.
The struggle started on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 folks in southern Israel — two thirds of whom had been civilians, Israeli authorities say — and took 251 others hostage.
Israel retaliated with an enormous navy offensive that has killed greater than 73,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s Well being Ministry says, round half of them ladies and kids. (The ministry is a part of the Hamas-led authority within the Gaza Strip, however its depend — which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and fighters — is taken into account correct by the U.N., medical consultants and the Israeli navy.)
The U.N., humanitarian consultants and human rights organizations, together with Israeli teams, accuse Israel of committing genocide in its marketing campaign in Gaza — a cost Israel denies, saying its assaults aimed to destroy Hamas.
Throughout the struggle, because the loss of life toll ticked upward within the enclave, search operations for our bodies largely stopped, both as a result of most heavy gear was destroyed, gasoline grew to become scarce or many strike websites grew to become inaccessible because of the combating.
Even after a ceasefire took impact Oct. 10, 2025, it was exhausting to renew searches, as a result of greater than 80% of the Civil Protection’s gear was destroyed.
And though the primary section of the Trump-brokered ceasefire stipulated unfettered entry for rubble-removing gear, Israel has closely restricted entry of excavators, bulldozers and cranes. (Final 12 months, a Hamas official stated Israel had allowed in solely six of the five hundred excavators and different heavy equipment wanted.)
That compelled rescue crews to depend on just a few privately owned excavators that regularly broke down for lack of spare components and gasoline, which Israel additionally restricts.
Israel says main rehabilitation efforts received’t start till Hamas is disarmed, and says development gear is dual-use and may serve navy functions.
In the meantime, Israeli assaults, although lessened, haven’t absolutely abated, with near-daily strikes killing at the very least 1,072 folks because the ceasefire took impact. Israel says it’s concentrating on Hamas and different militants to cease any risk.
In late June, help from the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross enabled the Civil Protection to renew restoration efforts for a restricted variety of hours in authorised areas, after coordinating with the Israeli navy. The outcome was a single, wholly outmatched excavator coming to the mountain of masonry that had been the Al-Zaharnah dwelling, the place Mutaz and at the very least six others had been nonetheless interred.
The assault that killed him got here on the night of Oct. 9, the day earlier than the ceasefire took maintain.
“We had been all ready,” Al-Zaharnah recalled. “No one needed to maneuver if the ceasefire was solely hours away.”
Because the sounds of combating elevated close by, Al-Zaharnah determined to depart along with his spouse and youngest son. His older kids and their households stayed behind.
“There was no evacuation order,” Al-Zaharnah stated. “No warning. In any case, there was nowhere protected for them to go.”
When the missile got here, the explosion pulverized the constructing so fully that many victims couldn’t instantly be recognized. Rescuers used what instruments they may scrounge — shovels, hoes, pickaxes, their naked fingers. The power of the blast had scattered human stays throughout a large space.
“Within the first days we weren’t accumulating our bodies; we had been accumulating items,” Al-Zaharnah stated. Finally, they used stray canine, hoping they may detect the scent of flesh.
After that, when the impossibility of recovering anybody else grew to become clear, Al-Zaharnah and others stored hoping worldwide organizations would persuade Israel to permit extra development gear, however to little avail.
On the day Al-Zaharnah monitored the excavation, the crews had been working at a painfully sluggish tempo, peeling again the pancaked layers of the constructing one after the other.
“That is the third day we’ve performed this,” Al-Zaharnah stated, standing beside the excavator.
“Perhaps we’ll want one other.”
The period of time that handed has solely compounded the challenges of discovering — not to mention figuring out — the victims. What stays that haven’t been scavenged have decomposed to the purpose the place DNA evaluation is tough and all however ineffective in Gaza, the place there are not any functioning laboratories in a position to take a look at and evaluate samples.
Clothes or equipment that might be used to establish family members could have been burned or torn off. And strategies to get better the our bodies are crude sufficient to destroy the very factor they search — a thought that has stalked Al-Zaharnah’s thoughts time and again.
“I preserve questioning, in the event that they discover Mutaz now, will the excavator tear aside what stays of his physique?” he stated. His solely higher concern, he added, was not discovering his son in any respect.
Gaza officers say they’ve recovered 784 our bodies because the truce started, based on a June report by the Palestinian information company Wafa. In October, authorities established a cemetery within the metropolis of Deir al Balah to bury unidentified our bodies recovered from across the enclave. The small print of the our bodies are documented and the graves numbered in order that members of the family can return and reclaim them.
Mutaz’s stays have but to be recovered.
Particular correspondent Shbeir reported from Gaza Metropolis and Occasions workers author Bulos from Beirut.
