More than six months after a US-brokered ceasefire was meant to silence the guns, Gaza remains a vast unmapped cemetery.
According to Gaza’s Civil Defence and a recent report by Haaretz, at least 8,000 Palestinians have remained trapped under the ruins of their own homes.
Despite the truce, the physical recovery of the enclave is virtually non-existent, with less than one percent of the 68 million metric tons of debris removed to date.
The scale of the devastation is difficult to overstate.
A joint assessment by the United Nations, the World Bank, and the European Union has estimated that clearing the rubble alone will cost upwards of $1.7 billion.
Alexander De Croo, head of the UN Development Programme, has asserted that at the current pace of work, it will take at least seven years to clear the enclave.
This logistical nightmare is further complicated by the pervasive presence of unexploded ordnance and the grim reality of thousands of decomposing human remains.
‘Paperwork and stagnation’
For families across Gaza, the wait is more than just a bureaucratic delay.
Civil defence teams have continued to receive thousands of calls from relatives who know the exact coordinates of their loved ones’ remains.
However, the lack of heavy machinery and specialised equipment has halted recovery efforts in some of the hardest-hit areas, including Gaza City’s Shujaiyeh and Tuffah neighbourhoods.
In many cases, the remains are located beyond the so-called “Yellow Line”—areas still under the direct control of the Israeli military.
