GAZA CITY — Yusef al-Zaharnah's eyes were transfixed on the excavator's bucket as his claws dug into the rubble, waiting for his new load to end nine grueling months of uncertainty and allow him to fully grieve.
Once he had disposed of his loot, Al-Zaharnah, a burly, tired-looking 56-year-old man, climbed over the debris and leaned in for a closer look. But their search turned up only crushed masonry; No bones, no signs of his son or the others killed with him.
“If I see even a small piece, whether it's my son's or someone else's, at least they can finally be buried,” Al-Zaharnah said, trudging back to his spot next to the excavator to wait for the next load and resume his search.
Al-Zaharnah's mourning journey began in October when an Israeli missile leveled the five-story building in Gaza City where his family was sheltering with others during Israel's war against Hamas militants.
More than 40 people were killed in the airstrike, including three of their children: Munther, 31; Mutaz, 26 years old; and Abdul Karim, 21 years old.
He managed to remove the bodies of Munther and Abdul Karim in the first days after the airstrike and buried them next to another son, Munir, 28, who was killed in an Israeli strike in June 2025.
The only thing I want is to bury my son next to his brothers.
— Yusef Al-Zaharnah
But Mutaz was still missing and it was impossible to reach his body without heavy machinery that only recently became available.
“All I want is to bury my son next to his brothers,” Al-Zaharnah said, his voice low as he looked at the bulldozer.
For Gaza Civil Defense forces, Al-Zaharnah's family represents a small part of a much larger crisis. Authorities estimate that more than 8,500 bodies (other experts suggest the number is closer to 14,000) remain trapped under 61.5 million tons of rubble across the Palestinian enclave, roughly 20 times the amount produced by conflicts around the world since 2008.
Recovering them from one of the most devastated places on Earth (the United Nations says more than 80% of buildings are damaged or destroyed) with the scarce resources available has been a frustratingly mammoth task, said Mahmoud al-Basal, a Civil Defense spokesman.
“Every day, Civil Defense receives dozens of calls from families asking if we can search for their loved ones under the ruins of their homes,” Al-Basal said.
“For the families, the missing have not disappeared, they are still under the rubble, waiting to be found. It is one of the least visible, but most devastating, humanitarian emergencies of the conflict,” he stated.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in southern Israel (two-thirds of whom were civilians, according to Israeli authorities) and took another 251 people hostage.
Israel responded with a massive military offensive that has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, about half of them women and children. (The ministry is part of the Hamas-led authority in the Gaza Strip, but its count, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, is considered accurate by the UN, medical experts and the Israeli military.)
The UN, humanitarian experts and human rights organizations, including Israeli groups, accuse Israel of committing genocide in its campaign in Gaza, a charge Israel denies and says its attacks were aimed at destroying Hamas.
During the war, as the death toll rose in the enclave, body search operations largely stopped, either because most heavy equipment was destroyed, fuel became scarce, or many attack sites became inaccessible due to fighting.
Even after a ceasefire came into effect on October 10, 2025, it was difficult to resume searches, because more than 80% of Civil Defense equipment was destroyed.
And although the first phase of the Trump-brokered ceasefire stipulated unrestricted entry for debris removal teams, Israel has heavily restricted the entry of excavators, bulldozers and cranes. (Last year, a Hamas official said Israel had allowed in only six of the 500 excavators and other heavy machinery needed.)
That forced rescue teams to rely on a few privately owned excavators that frequently broke down for lack of spare parts and fuel, something Israel also restricts.
Israel says major rehabilitation efforts will not begin until Hamas is disarmed, and says the construction equipment is dual-use and can serve military purposes.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks, although diminished, have not completely subsided: almost daily attacks have killed at least 1,072 people since the ceasefire went into effect. Israel says it is targeting Hamas and other militants to stop any threats.
At the end of June, support from the International Committee of the Red Cross allowed the Civil Defense to resume recovery tasks for a limited number of hours in authorized areas, after coordinating with the Israeli army. The result was a single, completely overrun excavator that reached the mountain of masonry that had been Al-Zaharnah's home, where Mutaz and at least six other people were still buried.
The attack that killed him occurred on the night of October 9, the day before the ceasefire went into effect.
“We were all waiting,” Al-Zaharnah recalled. “No one wanted to move if the ceasefire was only hours away.”
As the sounds of fighting increased nearby, Al-Zaharnah decided to leave with his wife and youngest son. Their older children and their families were left behind.
“There was no evacuation order,” Al-Zaharnah said. “Without warning. In any case, there was nowhere safe for them to go.”
When the missile arrived, the explosion pulverized the building in such a way that many victims could not be immediately identified. The rescuers used all the tools they could get: shovels, hoes, pickaxes and their bare hands. The force of the explosion had scattered human remains over a wide area.
“In the early days we didn't collect bodies; we collected pieces,” Al-Zaharnah said. Finally, they used stray dogs in the hopes of being able to detect the smell of the meat.
After that, when the impossibility of recovering anyone else became clear, Al-Zaharnah and others continued to hope that international organizations would convince Israel to allow more construction equipment, but to no avail.
On the day Al-Zaharnah supervised the excavation, teams were working at a painfully slow pace, removing layers of the building one by one.
“This is the third day we've done this,” said Al-Zaharnah, standing next to the excavator.
“Maybe we need another one.”
The amount of time that has passed has only compounded the challenges of finding, let alone identifying, victims. What remains that has not been looted has decomposed to the point that DNA analysis is difficult and almost useless in Gaza, where there are no functioning laboratories capable of analyzing and comparing samples.
Clothing or accessories that could be used to identify your loved ones may have been burned or torn off. And the methods for recovering the bodies are crude enough to destroy precisely what they seek, a thought that has haunted Al-Zaharnah's mind time and time again.
“I keep wondering, if they find Mutaz now, will the bulldozer destroy what's left of his body?” said. His only biggest fear, he added, was not finding his son at all.
Gaza officials say they have recovered 784 bodies since the truce began, according to a June report by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. In October, authorities established a cemetery in the city of Deir al Balah to bury unidentified bodies recovered around the enclave. Details of the bodies are documented and the graves numbered so that relatives can return and claim them.
Mutaz's remains have not yet been recovered.
Special correspondent Shbeir reported from Gaza City and Times staff writer Bulos from Beirut.
