The Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced on Monday the start of search operations for the bodies of Palestinians missing under the rubble of homes and small buildings destroyed by Israel during its months-long offensive in Gaza City.
This came in a statement issued by the Civil Defense, which indicated that the search operations are being conducted in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Since the ceasefire agreement came into effect in the Gaza Strip on October 10, searches for bodies have been carried out in a disorganized manner, mostly by civilians, due to the lack of necessary equipment for removing rubble at the Civil Defense headquarters in the Strip.
With this announcement, Civil Defense teams are attempting to recover bodies from under the rubble of small buildings in a more organized manner, using rudimentary digging equipment and tools.
The Red Cross had previously provided the Civil Defense with a single excavator to carry out similar operations in the central Gaza Strip, given the severe shortage of resources and the agency’s need for approximately 40 heavy vehicles to recover thousands of bodies from under the rubble, according to a Civil Defense statement.
Civil Defense teams managed to recover 14 bodies of martyrs from under the rubble of a house.
In a press statement carried by the Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA) on Monday, rescue teams said, “The search and recovery operations were carried out under extremely difficult conditions and with limited resources, as part of the ongoing humanitarian efforts to recover the bodies of martyrs trapped under the rubble, in preparation for their dignified burial.”
According to the agency, “Israeli aircraft launched a series of airstrikes today targeting the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, coinciding with heavy gunfire from military vehicles stationed north of the city, leading to a state of high tension in the area.”
Since the end of the war of extermination with the implementation of the ceasefire agreement on October 10, 2025, Israel has refused to allow the entry of heavy machinery and equipment needed to remove tons of rubble and recover the bodies of Palestinians buried beneath it.
According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, Israel has committed violations of the humanitarian protocol of the ceasefire agreement, including preventing the entry of “hundreds of heavy vehicles” to recover the bodies of Palestinians from under the rubble.
