“Where are the bodies of our loved ones?” They are missing in Gaza and their remains are stuck under the rubble

Darkness fell on the Jabalia neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip, when an Israeli quadcopter drone interrupted the calm of the evening on November 1, 2024.

That evening, Muhammad Youssef Shalayel had settled in his in-laws’ house with his wife and children, after visiting 16 of his displaced relatives in his parents’ house nearby. He did not know that this would be the last time he would see his family members.

A "huge explosion" rocked the area, leading to the "total collapse" of the Shalayil family home. When Shalayel returned to the attack site the next morning, he found that “the four floors had fallen on top of each other, and on top of the people who were inside,” as he put it.

The victims included his elderly mother, two brothers and a sister, as well as their children and in-laws.

“I will never forget it,” he told CNN in late September. “I found the dismembered body parts of children and women. I completely collapsed, but I tried to hold myself together so I could collect the pieces of meat that were scattered around.”

Almost two years later, Shalayel is still unable to return, as the Israeli army has since taken control of more than half of the destroyed area. He says that the fate of almost all of his family members is still unknown.

Amid the ruins of Gaza, Palestinians say they are trying to survive a conflict with no clear end in sight.

Three years after about 1,200 people were killed in Israel by Hamas and other armed factions on October 7, 2023, and a year after the ensuing war in Gaza was supposed to end under a US-brokered ceasefire agreement, Israeli strikes are still being launched on an almost daily basis. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 74,000 people were killed in the coastal enclave during the Israeli offensive, a number that may rise significantly.

The Civil Defense in Gaza reported that about 8,000 people are still missing, most of whom are likely buried under the rubble, the amount of which the United Nations estimated last year at about 61 million tons.

Pat Griffiths, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, said that the chances of identifying the dead are diminishing with each passing day, due to the loss of "crucial evidence."

Griffiths explained to CNN that under international humanitarian law, parties to an armed conflict have an “obligation to conduct searches and recover” the remains of the dead, missing and injured, as well as to collect, preserve and transmit information to the other party.

Under the October 2025 ceasefire plan, Israeli forces were instructed to withdraw to the “yellow line,” which demarcates areas under Israeli control. Residents and aid workers say that this shifting line of contact has prevented Palestinians from accessing vast areas of land where the bodies of their loved ones may be buried under the rubble.

A number of Jabalia residents reported to CNN that they saw the Israeli army demolishing mosques, homes, and buildings, or removing rubble near what is known as the “yellow line.”

One of the residents, Yahya Odeh, asked: “Where are the remains of our loved ones? Where are their bodies? There are entire families lying behind the ‘yellow line’, separated from their families.”

In September, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, warned against rubble removal operations in areas under Israeli military control “by bulldozers that do not respect the sanctity of the dead,” after the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based NGO, reported that such activities could lead to the suppression of evidence of war crimes.

Turk noted that the recovery of what appeared to be “entire families” from under the rubble in areas accessible to Palestinians highlights the need to preserve evidence related to possible war crimes. He also called for allowing international investigators access to all parts of the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials say that Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy machinery into Gaza have prolonged casualty recovery operations in parts of the Strip where Israeli forces are not currently present.

In August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a 15-point plan outlining a path to long-term stability in Gaza, insisting that Israeli forces would not withdraw “until Hamas is effectively disarmed.” In return, the movement called on the Israeli army to stop its strikes on Gaza and withdraw to the “yellow line,” in accordance with what was stipulated in the ceasefire plan.

An independent UN investigation conducted last year concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a finding rejected by the Israeli government.

In areas within Gaza accessible to Palestinians, civil defense personnel are combing destroyed homes in search of the remains of missing persons.

According to Mahmoud Basal, Civil Defense spokesman, field teams have recovered about 1,000 bodies from under the rubble since last October. However, there is only one excavator in Gaza City, while there is another excavator in the center of the Strip. Basal indicated that the recovery operations might be “accomplished” if the Israeli authorities provided the equipment requested by Palestinian officials, namely 10 excavators, 10 bulldozers, and 30 trucks.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli body charged with facilitating the entry of aid into Gaza, said that Israel had allowed the entry of “essential equipment,” including motor oil, medical supplies and tents. However, the unit stressed that the authorities will withhold heavy machinery and reconstruction materials until Hamas is disarmed, according to what was reported by Reuters.

Griffiths said that efforts to recover victims were made more dangerous by the presence of unexploded ordnance, adding that many rescue workers were "clearing the rubble - literally - a few centimeters at a time."

Basal stated that when the bodies of Palestinians are found buried under the rubble, some of them show signs of being eaten by rodents or stray dogs. Shalayel told CNN how he wrapped a blanket around his brother's arm, which was protruding from the rubble of his parents' house, in an attempt to protect it from "huge numbers" of roaming dogs, describing the scene as "horrific."

“In the end, the family tries to console themselves by believing that all their relatives have been pulled out from under the rubble, but we cannot be sure,” Basal said.

Dr. Ahmed Dhair said that he is one of only three specialized forensic doctors still present in the Gaza Strip.

Dhair added that doctors did not have access to DNA testing facilities even before the war, due to the blockade imposed on the Strip for years, which restricted the entry of medical supplies.

Griffiths said that the gradual destruction of Gaza's medical infrastructure, following repeated Israeli strikes on health centres, has led medical workers to increasingly rely on primitive methods to identify victims.

Dhir explained that when rescue teams transport unidentified bodies to hospitals, the absence of refrigeration units, fuel shortages, and frequent power outages accelerate the decomposition of the samples.

He added that in the absence of DNA tests, health workers were forced to resort to blood group tests and laboratory tests that do not provide conclusive results, which keeps the victims’ families in a constant state of uncertainty.

Jihad, Soha Al-Sharif’s son, was supposed to take care of his mother as she grew older, but his absence became her only companion.

“When Jihad passed away, I realized that he was the one who supported me; he was my source of strength,” Al-Sharif, 55, told CNN.

Al-Sharif explained that Jihad, 33 years old, was shot dead on November 9, 2023, during the family’s exodus from Gaza City. His body was transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, but the intensification of Israeli attacks prevented medical teams from burying the dead. The family was forced to flee again, heading south. After nearly three years, Al-Sharif was unable to find his body. She said: “The most difficult thing is that I could not bury him, and I do not know where his body is.”

She added: "At night, when I put my head on the pillow, memories come back to me. There is nothing left to cry about; I feel as if my life has ended."

Her sense of loss reflects the suffering of many survivors in Gaza. Two aid workers reported to CNN that Palestinians whose relatives are still missing are showing signs of what is known as “ambiguous loss,” a circumstantial state in which people feel lost, have difficulty concentrating, anxiety, depression or feelings of guilt.

According to Israa Al-Qahwaji, mental health program coordinator in Gaza for the British NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians, some people pray and keep photos or belongings of their loved ones to “keep their memory alive.” Al-Qahwaji added that the desire to find someone's body "reflects a very deep human need for the truth."

“Continuing to live does not mean abandoning or forgetting the person they have lost,” she added.

In Deir al-Balah, the “Cemetery of the Unknowns,” as locals call it, has become a symbol of the unknown fate facing hundreds of Palestinians.

About a thousand unidentified people were buried in this cemetery, according to the Civil Defense in Gaza. The authorities, in cooperation with international relief agencies, are working to establish a digital system for exchanging information, which includes assigning serial numbers to graves that do not bear names, with the aim of enabling the families of the victims to identify their relatives in the future, if the possibility of conducting DNA tests becomes available.

Dhair said: “We believe that these people and their families have the right, based on human dignity, to find their loved ones.”

Shalayel hopes that one day he will find his family members and bury their bodies in dignity. He says: "We, the people of Gaza, have a well-known saying: Honoring the dead is burying him. Our religion, customs and traditions teach us that when a person dies, he must be buried and his burial place must be known."