Search and recovery operations for the bodies of martyrs trapped under the rubble of homes and buildings destroyed by the Israeli war continue in the Gaza Strip, amid a severe shortage of heavy equipment and machinery, which prevents civil defense teams from reaching many victims after long periods since their areas were targeted. The Palestinian Civil Defense crews managed to recover 55 bodies and coffins of martyrs from under the rubble of a building belonging to the ‘Malaka’ family in the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City, which housed dozens of displaced people who fled there to escape the Israeli bombing. The teams continue their search operations for the third consecutive day, with estimates that the number of bodies in the building exceeds 60 martyrs. The head of the recovery file in the civil defense, Muhammad Abu Dan, said that the teams managed to recover most of the bodies, in preparation for a collective funeral procession early next week, while search operations are still ongoing to reach the remaining victims under the rubble.This process reveals the scale of the broader tragedy in the sector, as the Civil Defense confirms that there are about 10,000 bodies of martyrs under the rubble. These are estimates and don’t represent a final count, since it’s difficult to reach the victims and officially register them. Previous estimates by the Civil Defense indicated that more than 10,000 missing people remained under the rubble, and their bodies were not included in the Ministry of Health’s official statistics because they did not reach the hospitals.
