Nineteen bodies, most of them women and children, have been recovered from beneath the rubble of a destroyed residential building in Gaza City, civil defence officials confirmed on Saturday.
The recovery operation at the "Karam" building in western Gaza City lasted four consecutive days before crews concluded their search, according to Mohammed Abu Dan, who oversees recovery efforts in the area.
The grim recovery highlights the ongoing humanitarian challenge facing Gaza, where civil defence teams continue a slow, painstaking campaign to retrieve the dead from collapsed structures months after the ceasefire took effect. The work is severely hampered by a chronic shortage of heavy machinery.
More than 8,000 people remain unaccounted for under the rubble across the territory, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, leaving families in prolonged anguish as identification and burial efforts proceed at a limited pace.
Mohammed Abu Dan confirmed that work at the Karam building concluded on Saturday after four consecutive days of searching. Specialised medics and civil defence crews will now relocate to a new site elsewhere in Gaza City to resume search operations.
Civil defence officials have repeatedly stated that crews are relying on rudimentary tools and exhausting manual labour, lacking the heavy equipment needed to shift the concrete slabs left behind by Israeli strikes.
Since the ceasefire took hold on October 11 last year, at least 1,254 people have been killed and 4,121 wounded across Gaza, according to the Health Ministry's latest count. During the same period, 804 bodies have been recovered from rubble.
The overall death toll since October 2023 now exceeds 73,300, with more than 174,000 wounded. These figures underscore the scale of destruction and loss that recovery teams continue to confront daily.
Civil defence officials have stressed that the absence of heavy machinery capable of shifting large concrete slabs remains the primary obstacle to faster recovery operations. Crews depend on basic tools and sustained manual effort, which slows the pace considerably and places immense physical strain on workers.
The Health Ministry's estimate of more than 8,000 people still missing under debris across the territory reflects both the widespread destruction of residential areas and the limited resources available for search and retrieval.
With the Karam building operation now complete, civil defence teams and specialised medics are preparing to begin work at another location in Gaza City. Officials have not yet specified which site will be targeted next.
The broader recovery campaign continues across the territory, though progress remains constrained by equipment shortages and the sheer volume of collapsed structures requiring attention.
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