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gaza mass funeral recovery rebuilding

A mass funeral was held in Gaza City for more than 100 Palestinians whose remains were recovered from the rubble of a residential block destroyed early in the war, nearly three years after the strike that killed them. The recovery, carried out by civil defence teams working with heavy machinery that has only recently become available in sufficient quantity, is among the largest single retrievals of the dead since fighting in the area subsided enough to allow sustained access to the site.

• Gaza's civil defence service has operated for extended periods with a fraction of the heavy machinery, fuel and protective equipment such recovery work requires.
• Access to some strike sites has depended on the shifting boundaries of ceasefire and buffer-zone arrangements, rather than being available continuously.
• Identification has been hampered by the destruction of civil records and hospital documentation earlier in the conflict.
• International and local aid organisations have periodically flagged rubble removal and body recovery as a distinct, underfunded category of humanitarian need separate from food and medical aid.