'All I want is a grave for them’: bereaved Gazans dig bodies from city ruins
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Some estimate the bodies of around 10,000 Palestinians killed in the war are yet to be found. The ceasefire may have brought a fragile peace to Gaza, but for Mahmoud Abu Dalfa, the war's devastation continues. He tirelessly searches for the remains of his wife and five children, buried under the debris of their home since an Israeli airstrike in December.
![[A Palestinian walks next to a UN vehicle damaged during the Israeli offensive]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/11/50/A-Palestinian-walks-next-to-a-UN-vehicle-damaged-during-the-Israeli-offensive-in-Rafah-zs5ts1ck.jpeg)
Thirty-five members of Abu Dalfa's extended family perished when their building in Gaza City's Shejaia suburb was hit, he said. Amid the ongoing bombardment, only three bodies were recovered. Now, Abu Dalfa faces the agonising task of retrieving the rest.
![[Destroyed buildings in Rafah]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/22/11/00/A-Palestinian-walks-amid-the-rubble-of-buildings-destroyed-during-the-Israeli-offensive-in-Rafah-uap.jpeg)
"My children are still under the rubble," he said. "I am trying to get them out.". He described the immense challenges, hampered by the scale of destruction and a lack of necessary equipment. "The civil defence came, they tried, but…we don't have the equipment here… We need excavators and a lot of technical tools.".
Among the lost are his wife and all five of his children – three daughters and two sons, including a set of triplets. Burials are usually carried out within a few hours of death in Muslim and Arab communities, and failure to retrieve bodies and ensure dignified burials is agonizing for bereaved families.
"I hope I can bring them out and make them a grave. That's all I want from this entire world. I don’t want them to build me a house or give me anything else. All I want is a grave for them - to get them out and make them a grave," said Abu Dalfa. The war in Gaza was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. At least 94 of those hostages remain in Gaza.
