{"id":285396,"date":"2026-02-11T08:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/285396\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T08:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:14:09","slug":"a-father-in-gaza-searches-rubble-for-his-familys-remains-after-israeli-air-strike-destroys-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/285396\/","title":{"rendered":"A father in Gaza searches rubble for his family’s remains after Israeli air strike destroys home"},"content":{"rendered":"

In late 2024, he had dug down to his brother\u2019s apartment, which had been on the third floor, where he found the bodies of his brother and sister-in-law. He buried them in a temporary graveyard that residents of the area created during the war to hold their dead until they could be moved to a proper cemetery.<\/p>\n

Since October, Hammad resumed digging. He drove down nine metres. Finally, he reached his own apartment, which had been on the ground floor. Now he has been focusing on clearing rubble from the eastern side, because that\u2019s where he knows his wife was in her last moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were eating rice pudding in the living room,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sifting through the dirt with his sieve, he found tiny bone fragments. He shared images of the bones through WhatsApp with a doctor who said the fragments, which included a jawbone, appear to be for a small baby.<\/p>\n

He believes it\u2019s the remains of the baby girl they had been waiting for. They had planned to name her Haifa, after one of Hammad\u2019s sisters-in-law who was killed by an Israeli strike just a few weeks before the strike on their home.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the baby\u2019s clothes, a crib, and a room were prepared, and everyone at home was waiting for her arrival,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Discovering the bone fragments has brought him hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a clue that I\u2019m reaching my wife and other children,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Once he collects enough remains, he said, he will give them a proper burial.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

61M tonnes of rubble<\/p>\n

More than 700 bodies have been recovered from under buildings since the ceasefire began, Zaher al Waheidi, head of the Health Ministry\u2019s records department, said.<\/p>\n

Gaza has been suffering catastrophic consequences since Israel, backed by the US, launched its genocidal war in October 2023, which lasted two years and killed more than 72,000 Palestinians and wounded over 171,000<\/p>\n

Israeli bombardment destroyed or damaged 81 percent of Gaza\u2019s 250,000 buildings, including schools, hospitals and private houses, according to the UN\u2019s satellite imagery analysis unit.<\/p>\n

That has left Gaza as one of the most devastated places on earth with 61 million tonnes of rubble \u2014 about as much as 15 Great Pyramids of Giza or 25 Eiffel Towers by volume, according to the UN.<\/p>\n

Digging out has been made more difficult by the lack of bulldozers and heavy equipment, which Israel often bars from entering Gaza.<\/p>\n

Rescue work remains impossible in more than 50 percent of Gaza that remains under Israeli military control. There, the military has been systematically blowing up and bulldozing buildings, further reducing the possibility of finding any bodies lost inside.<\/p>\n

About two months ago, the UN and the Red Cross coordinated the entry of an excavator for the Civil Defence, said Karem al Dalu, a Civil Defence worker.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not enough,\u201d al Dalu said. He spoke as he and other rescue workers, using the new excavator, cleared the rubble of a building in Gaza City\u2019s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

The building was leveled by an air strike on December 11 2023, with some 120 people inside, said Rafiq Abdel-Khaleq Salem, whose immediate family was among those sheltering inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir only crime was that they didn\u2019t leave, so they flattened the building over them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the days following the strike, 66 bodies were recovered, he said. Another 54 people remained buried under the rubble.<\/p>\n

Rescue workers were finally able to come back to the site over the weekend. They managed to find 27 more bodies, but the rest remain missing, including Salem\u2019s wife and their four children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a painful feeling,\u201d he said. \u201cI hoped to find my wife and children to bury them in graves and visit them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In late 2024, he had dug down to his brother\u2019s apartment, which had been on the third floor,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-285396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}