Gaza teams recover remains of 55 people nearly 3 years after Israeli strike

The remains of 55 Palestinians have been recovered from the rubble of a residential building in Gaza City destroyed in an Israeli air strike nearly three years ago, according to Gaza’s civil defence.

The recovery operation, which concluded on Saturday, marks the latest in a slow, largely manual campaign to retrieve the dead from beneath Gaza’s ruins. Such efforts are hampered by a chronic shortage of the heavy machinery needed to clear broken concrete.

Rescue teams said the remains were found beneath the rubble of the Malka family home, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

Colonel Muhammad Abu Dan, who has been supervising the rescue teams, said they had been searching for more than 60 bodies of victims from the Malka family over the past 72 hours.

Situated in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, Israeli forces struck the building on November 19, 2023, as the family members sought shelter inside after being displaced from their own homes over the course of Israel’s genocidal war , said Wafa.

According to the United Nations Satellite Centre, 82 percent of all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged during the war.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health, along with UN agencies and aid organisations, estimate that between 10,000 and 14,000 people remain missing under rubble across the territory.

Abu Dan has called on international humanitarian organisations to provide as much equipment as possible so that his teams can recover the largest number of people possible from the rubble, as reported by Gaza’s Government Media Office.

As most of the bodies have been recovered, a joint funeral procession is expected to take place next weekend.

The recovery operation took place after United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee , said there was no plan to force Palestinians to leave Gaza after ⁠two Israeli ministers earlier in the week floated proposals for the mass removal of people from the besieged ⁠territory.

“I can tell you categorically there is no plan of the Israelis to displace people out of Gaza against their will,” Huckabee told reporters in ‌Turmus Ayya, a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“Nobody is suggesting that there will be forced displacement. The Israelis are not. The Americans are certainly not. ⁠I know of no one who supports that.”

Earlier this week, Defence Minister ⁠ Israel Katz said there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration”, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir outlined a seven-year plan for expelling Gaza’s population through what he described as “voluntary emigration”.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said hospitals in the strip received 17 bodies over the past 48 hours as well as 27 injured people, according to figures compiled from admissions.

The latest casualties included five new fatalities, one person who died from previous wounds and 11 bodies recovered from beneath debris. Additional victims remain trapped under rubble or lying in the streets, with ambulance and civil defence teams still unable to reach them, it added.

At least three Palestinians were injured in Israeli attacks on Saturday, two in an Israeli attack on a beach in the al-Khalidi area, north of Gaza City, and one in a targeted attack on the al-Sudaniyya area, northwest of Gaza City.

Since the “ceasefire” took hold last October, at least 1,344 people have been killed and 4,464 injured while at least 815 bodies have been recovered from the rubble, according to the Health Ministry.

The overall death toll since October 2023 has risen to 73,470, with at least 174,540 injured, according to the latest available figures.