'Scenes That Are Impossible to Bear': 70 Bodies, Including 10 Children, Recovered From Gaza Rubble

A mass funeral was held Sunday for 70 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces whose remains, mostly skeletal, were finally retrieved from the rubble of the obliterated Gaza Strip years after they were massacred in the ongoing genocide.

Gaza's Civil Defense said the bodies—60 of whom have been identified, and include at least 10 children—were recovered from beneath what were once 20 homes in a residential complex in Beit Lahia, as well as from under the ruins of buildings in Jabalia, both in the north.

" Gaza is no longer burying one or two martyrs at a time, but entire families who have remained buried beneath the rubble for years," Civil Defense Major Hamed Abdel Qader told The New Arab. "We ask where the conscience of the world is when it sees children trapped beneath the rubble for all this time without lifting a finger."

Speaking on behalf of the families of the deceased, Bilal al-Sharif told The New Arab that "the martyrs were denied their basic right to have their bodies laid to rest and remained beneath the rubble for many long months. Our feelings of grief are mixed with pride, because the dead must be honoured and buried in a manner befitting their human dignity."

Sometimes called "the world's largest mass grave," the Gaza Strip is believed to have more than 8,000 bodies still buried beneath its rubble after more than three years and over 220,000 metric tons of explosives falling on its 141 square miles.

Israel’s destruction and denial of the heavy equipment needed for such a monumental recovery operation initially left Palestinians largely reliant upon rudimentary tools such as shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows, rakes, hoes, and even their bare hands. Earlier during the genocide, they worked amid the stench of death and decomposition that lingered in the air.

Civil Defense said its workers used two bulldozers and two transport trucks and toiled more than 230 hours to recover the 70 bodies buried Sunday. The remains of 90 more people have yet to be removed from the work sites.

"Many bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble, waiting to be recovered so their families can bid them farewell and lay them to rest," said al-Sharif. "This makes it imperative to stand alongside the teams carrying out this work and provide them with the equipment needed to complete the task."

Palestinians are struggling to dig through more than 60 million tons of debris after over 80% of all structures in Gaza were destroyed or damaged by two years of Israeli bombardment. That’s more than 200,000 buildings and other structures.

United Nations experts estimate it would take seven years for 100 trucks to remove all debris across Gaza, where more than three-quarters of roads are damaged, and unexploded ordnance and Israeli booby traps beneath the debris continue to pose deadly threats to recovery workers and survivors in general.

"We call on all international organizations and relevant bodies to intervene urgently and provide the resources needed to recover the remaining bodies," Qader said. "During field search and recovery operations, Civil Defense teams have witnessed scenes that are impossible to bear. Their work has not been limited to clearing rubble; they have also been confronted with entire families buried beneath the ruins of homes that were once safe."

An analysis of Gaza's civil registry published earlier this year found that 2,700 families in the strip had been entirely wiped out since October 2023, when Israel launched its war in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack that month.

Meanwhile, despite a supposed ceasefire in force since October 2025, Israel continues to launch daily attacks in Gaza. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed, over 21,500 of them children—although experts say the actual toll is likely much higher. Roughly 176,000 others have been wounded.

A United Nations commission of inquiry and many experts around the world—including numerous Israeli and other Jews—say Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.