After 136 hours of painstaking search and recovery efforts, Gaza’s Civil Defense recovered the remains of 112 civilians killed in Israeli airstrikes. A mass funeral was held for the victims on 4 August 2026.
The victims were found beneath the rubble of a residential block in Gaza City’s al-Sabra neighbourhood, which was heavily bombarded by Israeli airstrikes. Among those recovered were 40 children, 38 women and seven people with disabilities.
Gaza: 112 recovered, 196 still missing
The building was home to members of the extended Abu Sharia and Al-Husayna families before it was targeted in an Israeli airstrike on 23 November 2023. This attack reduced it to rubble.
For those trapped beneath the wreckage, the hours that followed were a desperate wait for help that never came.
The strike was reported to have killed 308 Palestinians. However, Gaza’s Civil Defense has so far recovered only 112 bodies. For 32 months, the fate of the remaining victims has remained buried beneath the debris, beyond the reach of recovery teams.
Throughout the war, Israeli authorities restricted rescue and recovery operations. Meanwhile, the continued lack of access to heavy machinery has made the removal of bodies from beneath the rubble even more difficult. Ongoing military activity by Israeli forces also made attempts to reach survivors and recover the dead extremely dangerous. In many cases, it was impossible.
Beneath the rubble
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, told the Canary:
We estimate that around 8000 people are still missing under collapsed buildings across the Gaza Strip. Recovering them requires an enormous effort from Civil Defense teams.
Basal said the scale of recovery operations is far beyond what Civil Defense teams can manage with the limited equipment. The first recovery project involved 800 hours of work, with a single excavator sourced from Gaza’s local market to recover 500 bodies.
After that operation was completed, recovery efforts were delayed for seven months before a second project was approved.
He explained to the Canary:
We are currently implementing this second phase, which also provides 800 operating hours using only one excavator operating inside Gaza. But there are still a very large number of destroyed homes and locations that require search and recovery operations. It is clear that the current project and the available equipment are far from sufficient.
Basal said recovery efforts are especially difficult in areas within the “yellow line”, where Israeli forces are present. He said they had bulldozed large areas, including locations where bodies remain trapped beneath destroyed homes. This has made it difficult to locate and identify victims.
Limited recovery operations were only permitted following the October 2026 ceasefire agreement, with Civil Defense teams coordinating their work with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Basal said that despite these limited operations, restrictions on equipment and access continue to leave thousands of missing Palestinians beyond the reach of recovery teams.
The unresolved fate of Gaza’s missing
For thousands of families in Gaza, the search is not only about recovering bodies. It is about finding answers for loved ones whose fate remains unknown.
Basal told the Canary:
There are victims whose fate is known — they remain beneath collapsed buildings inside these restricted areas. At the same time, there are other buildings within the yellow line where the fate and whereabouts of those believed to be inside remain completely unknown. This is another painful challenge facing Civil Defense teams. This has made the situation highly complex.
Without urgent international support, Basal warned that many victims may never be recovered or identified.
Civil Defense teams require specialist resources, including additional heavy machinery and forensic laboratory capabilities for DNA testing. With these, recovered remains can be identified and returned to their families. He added that:
Without these capabilities, many victims are likely to remain unidentified, and this humanitarian file could then remain unresolved indefinitely.
The scale of Gaza’s missing persons crisis reflects the wider devastation of the war. Since 7 October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed at least 73,375 Palestinians, including more than 21,600 children — deliberately targeted — while more than 174,000 have been injured. Thousands of families have also been entirely erased from Gaza’s Civil Registry after all known members were killed.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
