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Gaza rescuers consider magnitude of destruction


Reuters People, including a boy who uses crutches and is missing the lower half of his left leg, walk among the gray, dusty rubble of houses and buildings destroyed during the war in Al-Bureij, central Gaza.Reuters

Palestinians walk through the rubble of houses and buildings in central Gaza

On Monday, the first full day of peace in Gaza, rescue workers and civilians began to consider the magnitude of the destruction in the Strip.

Gaza’s Civil Defense agency – the strip’s main emergency response service – said it feared more than 10,000 bodies were still buried beneath the vast sea of ​​rubble.

Spokesman Mahmoud Basal told the BBC they hoped to recover the dead within 100 days, but were likely to be delayed by a lack of bulldozers and other essential equipment.

New images from Gaza after Sunday’s ceasefire showed scenes of total devastation caused during 15 months of Israeli offensive, particularly in the north of the enclave.

The UN has previously estimated that 60% of structures across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

Although the sounds of shelling were replaced by celebrations as the ceasefire began on Sunday, the reality facing people across Gaza remains desperate.

According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the war has left more than two million Gazans homeless, without income and completely dependent on food aid to survive.

That aid began entering Gaza immediately after Sunday’s ceasefire and the UN said at least 630 trucks entered the Strip before the end of the day, the highest number since the start of the war 15 months ago.

Sam Rose, acting director of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, said the aid supplies were just the beginning of the challenge of bringing life back to the strip.

“We’re not just talking about food, healthcare, buildings, roads, infrastructure; we have individuals, families and communities that need to be rebuilt,” he said.

“The trauma that you have been through, the suffering, the loss, the pain, the humiliation and the cruelty that you have endured over the last 16 months… this is going to be a very, very long road.”

In Israel, the families of the three hostages who were freed in the first exchange spoke at a news conference in Tel Aviv on Monday night. Mandy Damari, mother of Emily Damari, a dual Israeli-British citizen, said Emily was in “very good spirits” and “on the road to recovery” despite losing two fingers in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

Meirav Leshem Gonen, Romi Gonen’s mother, said: “We got our Romi back, but all families deserve the same result, both the living and the dead. Our hearts go out to the other families.”

Ahead of the news conference, Israeli authorities released new images showing Damari, 28, Gonen, 24, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, tearfully greeting their mothers on Sunday, moments after being flown out of Gaza. .

If the first phase of the ceasefire holds, 30 more hostages will be freed from Gaza over the next 40 days in exchange for the release of some 1,800 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

EPA An aerial view taken with a drone shows internally displaced Palestinians walking along a street among the gray, dusty rubble of destroyed buildings in Rafah. EPA

Internally displaced Palestinians walk in Rafah on Monday

Palestinian health authorities estimate that more than 46,900 people died in Gaza during the more than 15 months of war and more than 110,700 were injured.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says most of the dead are women and children, a claim backed by the UN.

A UK-led study published by The Lancet medical journal this month suggested Health Ministry figures may underestimate the death toll by more than 40%.

Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said in a statement on Monday that 48% of its own staff had been killed, injured or detained during the conflict, and that 85% of its vehicles and 17 of 21 facilities had been damaged or destroyed.

Although the risk of airstrikes has disappeared, for now the grim work continues for the remaining Civil Defense workers. Footage shared with the BBC by agency members in northern Gaza on Monday showed them carrying out harrowing work, including recovering dead babies and human remains in poor condition.

“In every street there are dead. In every neighborhood there are people under the buildings,” said Abdullah Al-Majdalawi, a 24-year-old Civil Defense worker in Gaza City.

“Even after the ceasefire we received many calls from people telling us: please come, my family is buried under the rubble.”

Malaak Kasab, a 23-year-old recent graduate displaced from Gaza City, told the BBC on Monday that members of her own family were among those yet to be recovered.

“We have lost many members of our family and some are still under the destroyed buildings,” he said. “There are many people under the rubble, everyone knows it.”

Kasab’s family home in an apartment building was not completely destroyed, he said, but it was severely damaged. “There are no doors, no windows, no water, no electricity, nothing. Not even wood to make a fire. It is uninhabitable.”

The movements remain dangerous for displaced Gazans as the Israeli army begins the process of withdrawing from populated areas of the Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has warned people not to approach its personnel or facilities, or enter the buffer zone it created around the Gaza border and around the Netzarim corridor, which divides Gaza in two, separating the north from the south.

But many residents were eager to see what was left of their homes sooner than they had been advised. Hatem Eliwah, a 42-year-old factory supervisor from Gaza City, said he was considering setting out on foot from his shelter in Khan Younis in the south.

“We have been waiting for this ceasefire like people waiting to enter heaven,” Eliwah said. “I lost two of my brothers and their families. I lost cousins ​​and uncles. The only thing I still hope for is to return home.”

There are serious concerns on both sides that the deal could collapse even before the first phase is completed in about six weeks, and Israel has emphasized that it reserves the right to resume military action in Gaza at any time.

‘I want to fulfill my dead brother’s dream’: Gazans face daunting task as they try to rebuild their lives

At a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the agreement as a “ray of hope” and said its obligations must be met.

But Guterres warned of a worsening situation in the occupied West Bank, which has seen a huge increase in Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villages since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

“Senior Israeli officials are openly talking about formally annexing all or part of the West Bank in the coming months,” Guterres said, adding: “Any such annexation would constitute a very serious violation of international law.”

Muath Al-Khatib contributed to this report.



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