Remains Of 105 Palestinians Recovered From Gaza City Rubble After 17-Day Search

The recovery operation was carried out in the Al-Taj area of the city, where families gathered to identify relatives and bid farewell to the victims. Rescue workers laid the shrouded remains in rows among the ruins. The operation was conducted in coordination with an Egyptian committee, according to the Civil Defense and Anadolu Agency.

Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said the victims were civilians and called for greater protection of civilians in Gaza. Families at the site described the recovery as a painful but important step toward identifying and burying relatives whose remains had remained beneath the rubble.

Taghreed Al-Hanawi said her daughter, physician Alia Ramzi Al-Hanawi, was killed along with her husband and four children. She said the family had been effectively erased from official records and that recovering their remains allowed relatives to finally bury them with dignity.

Fawaz Ziyara, a survivor and relative of victims, said about 300 people were killed when the residential block was struck and that additional bodies and missing people remained beneath the rubble. His estimate has not been independently verified and should be treated as a claim by a local survivor.

The recovery comes amid a broader effort by Gaza's Civil Defense to locate people believed to remain beneath destroyed buildings. UN officials said Civil Defense had recovered more than 630 bodies and human remains from destroyed buildings across Gaza between November 2025 and September 2026, while more than 8,000 people were estimated to remain missing under the rubble. The UN has also reported severe shortages of heavy machinery and specialized equipment needed for large-scale recovery operations.

The United Nations and other international organizations have warned that the scale of destruction has made the recovery and identification of human remains a prolonged and difficult process. Recent reporting has estimated that thousands of bodies could still be buried beneath Gaza's debris, while the removal of rubble itself faces safety, equipment and access challenges.

Gaza's Health Ministry said Wednesday that 1,431 Palestinians had been killed and 5,026 injured since what it described as violations of the October 2025 ceasefire. It also reported that more than 74,000 Palestinians had been killed and more than 175,000 injured since October 2023.

The latest recovery operation highlights the continuing humanitarian consequences of the destruction in Gaza, where rescue teams and families continue searching for the remains of people who have remained missing beneath collapsed buildings.

MENAFN01102026000228011069ID1111743410