During a search for a body in Gaza, he found his niece’s body in his shoe.
IDPs are returning to Rafah, a day after a ceasefire in Gaza began. The border town is a shell of its former self, many of the buildings have collapsed and the remains of victims still lie beneath the rubble.
Instead of bodies, white bags are filled with clothes, bones and tiny hairs – any of which families can help with identification. Sometimes the word “unknown” is written on the bag in blue. Those souls are buried without names or loved ones.
Zaki Shakafa was searching for his nephew Abdul Salam al-Mugai’s body, which was found under the rubble on Monday. When he took a photo of his 26-year-old niece on his phone, he recognized the shoes – gray with a navy blue triangle on the side. Shakafa pointed to the design and confirmed that it was his nephew.
“We lost him five months ago,” Mohamed El Saife, a freelance videographer, told the CBC. “And this is what confirmed that this martyr is part of our family.”
The imam of the nearby mosque, Ibrahim Solayeh, pleaded with them to come to the European hospital and help them separate the bodies and bury them.
“These bodies have been in the streets and under the rubble for a long time,” he told El Saife. “(They) have reached the point of bones and decay.”
More than 15 months of unrelenting Israeli bombardment of Gaza began on Sunday after a ceasefire agreement came into force with the release of the first three hostages held by Hamas and 90 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Approximately 10,000 bodies in the ruins
Solayeh said they had recovered 50 bodies on Monday, half of which had been identified.
Many still remain under the rubble of the Gaza Strip.
More than 47,000 Palestinians have died in the 15-month war, according to the regional health ministry. Determining the exact number of deaths due to the chaos of the war is challenging and subject to scrutiny.
A peer-reviewed study has been published The Lancet On January 9, the official figures suggest that they can be greatly underestimated. As of June 30, 2024, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported 37,877 deaths. The study estimated the number to be around 64,200 on that day.
The Palestinian Civil Defense said it was searching for an estimated 10,000 bodies in the rubble.
Haytham Alhams, a rescue worker at the Palestinian Civil Defense, said the agency received calls on Monday about the decomposing bodies of more than 100 people found in the rubble.
“This is a day-to-day mission for civil defense,” Alhams told CBC News Monday.
Disaster level ‘big shock’
At least 2,840 bodies have been destroyed, Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.
Mohammed Goma, who was displaced by the war and lost his brother and nephew, said the devastation in Gaza was “a big shock”.
“There are countless (people) who are shocked by what happened to their homes – it’s a disaster, it’s total destruction,” Goma said.
“It’s not like an earthquake or a flood, no, no, what happened is a war of destruction.”
Desperate Palestinians are seeking to rebuild the beach that was destroyed by the Israeli army following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel.
That attack killed 1,200 people, with about 250 hostages taken to Gaza, according to an Israeli report.
Debris cleanup could take 21 years: Report
Reports estimate that it will cost billions of dollars to rebuild Gaza after the destruction caused by Israeli bombing.
A damage assessment released this month by the United Nations found that clearing the more than 50 million tons of rubble left behind by Israeli bombing would take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion.
Rebuilding shattered homes in Gaza could take at least until 2040, but could last for decades, according to a UN report released last year.
The rubble is believed to be contaminated with asbestos, and some refugee camps are known to have been built with the material during the war.
A United Nations Development Program official said on Sunday that development in Gaza had been set back by 69 years as a result of the conflict.
Eight people were hit by Israeli fire in Rafah, southern Gaza, despite a ceasefire that appeared to be largely in place on Monday, medical experts said.
According to the cease-fire agreement, the Israeli military said that it “approached the deployed troops and fired warning shots at suspected terrorists.”
