GAZA CITY — Standing beside the mound of rubble that was once his home, Ahmed Salim cannot hold back the tears as he struggles to retrieve the bodies of loved ones trapped underneath tons of debris.

Over 30 people were killed when his home was struck, he told AFP, among them “my wife, my children, my mother, my father.”

“I’m the only one who survived,” he told AFP, pointing to the pile of broken concrete and twisted metal that was once a five-story building in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood.

The building was destroyed on December 24, 2024. He has been waiting ever since to retrieve their bodies and give them a proper burial.

“The only thing that matters to me is to be able to bury them,” the 43-year-old said.

After two years of war between Israel and Hamas that ravaged the Gaza Strip, thousands of other Palestinians are in a similar situation.

According to United Nations data, as of late September, around 83 percent of the buildings in Gaza that stood prior to the war have been destroyed during Israel’s war against Hamas, which the terror group ignited with its invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel has said the widespread destruction in Gaza was a direct result of Hamas and other terror groups embedding themselves and conducting combat from within a substantial portion of civilian buildings in the enclave, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques. They also dug hundreds of miles of tunnels under Gaza’s cities and towns from which to attack Israeli troops.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields.........

© The Times of Israel