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The passage of time and a lack of heavy equipment have made search and recovery operations increasingly difficult and complicated, those working on the mission say. UN News.
In one area of Gaza City, a heavy machine continues to clear the rubble of a house destroyed by the war.
Meanwhile, civil defense personnel and local teams continue to dig and comb through the rubble for the remains of victims believed to have remained buried under the rubble for more than two years.
“The building is believed to contain the remains of 44 victims,” said locally based team member Asaad Shreim. “So far, we have only been able to recover 13 of them, while residents and civil defense teams managed to recover the largest number in the first hours after the bombing.”
Waiting to find his family’s remains
Search and recovery operations are still being carried out with limited resources.
Ramez Nabhan lost his wife, children and several family members during the Israel-Hamas war.
The UN confirmed that the removal of millions of tons of rubble was hampered by Israeli restrictions on the entry of heavy equipment as well as the risks posed by unexploded ordnance strewn among the rubble, slowing the process of reaching and recovering the remains of victims.
While watching the excavation work, Ramez Nabhan waits to find the remains of his family members who were killed in a bombing that targeted the building where they lived in the early days of the war.
“I was a father of three children, and I had a wife, and I lost everything at the start of the war,” Nabhan said. “Several missiles fell on this building, and residents and civil defense teams managed to recover several bodies, including those of my son, my uncle and his wife.”
A long overdue funeral
Nabhan said that a lack of heavy equipment and fuel during the first months of the war prevented the timely recovery of many casualties.
“There was no equipment to remove the bodies, no fuel or necessary resources, and conditions were unsafe for rescue teams to operate,” he said. “We have waited a long time and today, we face a new trial: finding the body and then burying it.”
During the search operation, local teams managed to locate a number of his family members, and their remains were placed in designated bags in preparation for identification and completion of burial procedures.
The bodies of several members of Ramez Nabhan’s family, after local teams managed to evacuate them from under the rubble.
The wound reopened
For thousands of families in Gaza, this tragedy does not end with the loss of their loved ones, but continues with a long wait to recover and bury their bodies. With each grave exhumation, the pain of loss returns, and the challenge of identifying the victims becomes increasingly apparent.
“It was very difficult to reopen the wound,” Nabhan said.
“We live between the pain of remembering the loss and the funeral. These are my children, and there are no words that can describe what I feel inside.”
Thousands of people are still missing
As time passes, identification of remains becomes increasingly complicated due to natural decomposition and the limited capabilities of forensic science and DNA testing, prolonging the suffering of families still waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones.
The war resulted in the deaths of more than 71,000 Palestinians and injured more than 171,000 others, according to the latest joint damage and needs assessment report released by the UN and its partners in April 2026.
The UN indicates that thousands of people are still missing, and many are believed to still be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings amid widespread damage to infrastructure and residential areas across Gaza.
The search will continue for some time to come.
