A civil society group in Gaza is pleading for international assistance to recover the bodies of more than 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces who remain buried beneath the wreckage of their homes. The appeal, made Thursday by the National Committee for Missing Persons in the Genocide Against Gaza, described the enclave as “the world’s largest mass grave.”
“These martyrs were buried under the rubble of their homes, which have turned into mass graves, without their final dignity being preserved or their bodies being retrieved,” said Aladdin Al-Aklouk, the committee’s spokesperson.
The group called on humanitarian agencies and international bodies to act as decomposition, unexploded ordnance, and a lack of heavy machinery make recovery increasingly perilous. “We express our shock and strong condemnation of the absence of an effective role by international organizations and humanitarian bodies, especially those concerned with the issue of missing persons, in light of the ongoing escalating humanitarian disaster,” Al-Aklouk said.
“The remnants are ticking time bombs and pose a danger to the population in the Gaza Strip,” he continued. “We need specialists alongside the teams working in the sector. We call on the world to send international teams to recover the bodies of the missing. We call on the world to provide the necessary equipment to recover the bodies.”
The Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures have been deemed accurate by Israeli military officials and a likely undercount by multiple peer-reviewed studies—reports at least 68,875 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023. Gaza officials say that although a U.S.-brokered ceasefire technically remains in effect, there have been over 200 Israeli violations resulting in more than 240 additional deaths and over 600 injuries. More than 170,600 Palestinians have been wounded since the war began.
The destruction has left Palestinians facing what humanitarian agencies call an impossible task. More than 80 percent of Gaza’s buildings and infrastructure—over 200,000 structures—have been damaged or destroyed. The United Nations estimates it will take seven years for 100 trucks working daily to remove all of the debris, which totals at least 60 million tons. More than three-quarters of Gaza’s roads are impassable, and the landscape is littered with unexploded ordnance and booby traps.
Israel’s restrictions on heavy machinery and fuel have left local rescue workers using shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows, rakes, hoes, and their bare hands to dig through the rubble. The stench of decomposing bodies hangs over entire neighborhoods.
The Abu Naser family of Beit Lahia lost more than 130 relatives in a single airstrike on October 29, 2024, when their five-story home—sheltering more than 200 people—was bombed. Survivor Mohammed Nabil Abu Naser immediately began digging through the ruins. “It was all bodies and body parts,” he said. “About 50 of them are still under the rubble to this day, a full year later.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that, given the limited equipment available, “It could take up to three years to retrieve the bodies using the primitive tools they have on hand.” The agency cited the Palestinian civil defense authority’s assessment that the recovery effort is “a huge challenge” due to the shortage of bulldozers, excavators, and trained personnel. Rising temperatures are accelerating the decomposition of bodies, heightening the risk of disease.
Entire neighborhoods across the Gaza Strip have been leveled by bombardment from the air, land, and sea. According to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), the destruction has left an estimated 37 million tonnes of debris containing around 800,000 tonnes of asbestos and other contaminants. The agency also warns that some 7,500 tonnes of unexploded ordnance are “scattered” across Gaza and could take up to 14 years to clear.
In Khan Younis, where Israeli troops withdrew last month, UN assessment teams discovered 1,000-pound bombs “lying on main intersections and inside schools.” Streets and public spaces remain littered with unexploded weapons. UN-led teams are mapping high-risk areas, assessing damage to UNRWA facilities, and conducting public awareness campaigns through text messages, leaflets, and social media to help the 1.2 million Gazans now exposed to explosive hazards.
The humanitarian toll extends beyond those trapped beneath the rubble. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a video message that the “nightmare” must end. Nearly all of the 600,000 children now sheltering in Rafah are “injured, sick or malnourished.” She added, “Over 200 days of war have already killed and maimed tens of thousands of children in Gaza.”
Two American volunteer surgeons, Drs. Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa, described last year how many survivors of bombings died slowly while trapped beneath collapsed buildings. They wrote that wounded victims suffered “unimaginably cruel deaths from dehydration and sepsis while trapped alone in a pitch-black tomb that alternates as an oven during the day and a freezer at night.” The doctors added, “One shudders to think how many children have died this way in Gaza.”
OCHA’s most recent update reported that between April 29 and May 1, 80 Palestinians were killed and 118 injured by Israeli bombardment. The agency cited a strike on April 29 “at about 12:25pm” that killed two women and two girls in the Tall As Sultan neighborhood of western Rafah. Since October 7, Gaza health authorities report at least 34,560 Palestinians killed and 77,765 injured. The same update noted that two Israeli soldiers were killed and six injured during that period, bringing the total number of Israeli military deaths in Gaza since the start of the ground operation to 262, with 1,602 soldiers injured.
As recovery efforts continue amid the ruins, aid groups warn that without immediate international intervention, the dead will remain unrecovered and the living will continue to face lethal risks from debris and explosives. With temperatures rising and disease spreading, Gaza’s rubble has become a source of both contamination and despair.
For the families still searching, the call remains urgent. “We call on the world to send international teams to recover the bodies of the missing,” said Al-Aklouk. “We call on the world to provide the necessary equipment to recover the bodies.”
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