Gaza families bury bodies of loved ones trapped for years under rubble

Jabalia, Gaza Strip – Mahmoud Nabhan, a man in his sixties from Bir an-Naaja in northern Gaza, had waited more than three years for this day. He wanted to give his loved ones a proper burial after 17 members of his family, including his seven children and grandchildren, were killed when their home was targeted 20 days after Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023. Among those killed was Nabhan’s 45-day-old grandchild. Recommended Stories list of 3 items list 1 of 3 UN says Israeli policies worsened deadly impact of Gaza winter storm list 2 of 3 EU calls for immediate humanitarian access to Gaza list 3 of 3 Israeli air strike kills senior Hamas commander in Gaza end of list After years of searching for their bodies, on Sunday Nabhan was finally able to bury his family members after Civil Defence teams retrieved their remains from the rubble of his home.

“All of them were children, all of them were loved ones,” he said. Nabhan said there had been no fighters, Israeli soldiers or captives inside the home when it was struck. For the past three years, he had tried to help recover his family’s remains, but the difficult conditions prevented this. Their recovery from his destroyed home brought some relief for Nabhan, but it also brought more trauma. “It feels as if they have just been killed again.

The wounds have reopened,” he said. “But, thank God, we now know that our children have a grave here, beside their siblings, and we can visit them.” Mahmoud Nabhan lost 17 members of his family in an Israeli attack in northern Gaza in October 2023 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] Waiting for a burial The genocide in Gaza killed at least 73,600 people, with 82 per cent of the structures in Gaza damaged and two-thirds of them destroyed by waves of Israeli air strikes and shelling.

Advertisement Under the rubble were thousands of bodies, with the continued attacks by Israeli forces often making it too dangerous for families or Civil Defence teams to retrieve them. A truce agreed between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, which has been repeatedly broken by Israel, has allowed for some of the bodies to be recovered from the rubble that carpets Gaza Civil Defence teams have managed to retrieve the remains of 69 Palestinians from locations in Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahiya in recent days.

For many families, the operation marked the end of years of uncertainty. Relatives had repeatedly followed up with Civil Defence, waiting for heavy machinery and other equipment to reach bodies trapped under collapsed buildings. Fatima al-Masri, 47, said her husband and 18-year-old son were killed in an Israeli attack in the Safatwi area of northern Gaza in October 2024. Their remains have been buried beneath the rubble of their home for two years.

“Every month, every two months, sometimes every week or every two weeks, we would follow up with Civil Defence,” she said. “They told us they needed heavy equipment to lift the house because several floors had collapsed on top of them.” Fatima al-Masri, 47, sits near the graves of her husband and son’s remains after two years beneath the rubble [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] After a long delay, the recovery operation began, with workers digging through the rubble using machines and by hand.

They found bone fragments and al-Masri’s son’s mobile phone, along with the bodies and belongings of those who had been with her husband and son. “Thank God, we found their remains and everything that was with them,” al-Masri said. The two years of tortuous delays had left her in a constant state of anxiety. Every day, the same questions occupied her thoughts. “I was always tense and worried. Every day, the same question was in my mind: ‘When would they recover them?

When would we be able to bring them out?’” she said. After the remains were recovered, she expressed relief that her husband and son could finally be buried. Thousands under the rubble The Palestinian Civil Defence estimates that more than 8,000 bodies are still to be recovered across Gaza. The total number of missing Palestinians is estimated to exceed 10,000, although the broader figure includes people whose whereabouts remain unknown for different reasons, including those believed to be buried under rubble, detained or buried without identification.

Israel’s ongoing siege on Gaza means that Civil Defence teams have limited resources, with manual excavation often the only way to do their grim work. Advertisement According to Palestinian authorities cited by the United Nations, more than 630 bodies and human remains had been recovered from beneath destroyed buildings across Gaza since November 2025 by September 2026. Ramiz Hassouna, a lecturer at Israa University, said the recovery of his brother’s remains, Montaser, brought nearly two years of uncertainty to an end.

He disappeared on November 8, 2024, during the Israeli military siege of Jabalia refugee camp. He was last known to be in the al-Faluja area, where he had been trapped with a group of friends. Ramiz Hassouna attends the recovery of his brother’s remains after nearly two years [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] For almost two years, the family received conflicting accounts about his fate. Some said he had been killed, while others believed he had been detained.

The uncertainty ended when Civil Defence teams recovered his remains from a destroyed building in al-Faluja and contacted the family. He was identified through personal belongings, including his wristwatch, a miswak (a traditional teeth-cleaning stick) and a prayer booklet, as well as distinctive marks on his front teeth. Hassouna could not bring himself to go and identify his brother’s remains, so asked his younger brother to go in his place.

“I personally could not bear to look at my brother in that condition. I left it to my younger brother to identify him,” he said. The remains of the friends Montaser was with when he died were recovered together and buried in the same grave. “As they accompanied one another in this life, they will accompany one another in the afterlife,” said Hassouna.