Rafah 'erased' from the map

Thousands of bodies remain buried under buildings targeted by Israeli strikes. Since the ceasefire, Gaza authorities have slowly been going from site to site to try to find them.

Several weeks ago, a search team finally came to the Gaza City home of Haneen al-Khodari. When her building was hit in December 2023, al-Khodari was thrown into a nearby tree, and after weeks in the hospital, she was told her parents, siblings and many of her cousins were killed, she said. The bodies of 17 of them remained trapped under wreckage ever since.

But after eight hours of digging through the ruins, the team only recovered the remains of a small child and two bones. The search for the rest was called off.

Al-Khodari sat on the pavement, her hopes dashed. "We had been waiting for this moment for three years," she said.

A plastic sheet on the ground in front of her contained what they'd found, labeled with the words, "Mixed bones".

AGENCIES VIA XINHUA