The search for Gaza’s missing brings heartbreak and closure for loved ones
Thousands of bodies remain trapped under the rubble of their homes in Gaza, with a long and difficult task of retrieval. On November 16, 2023
Thousands of bodies remain trapped under the rubble of their homes in Gaza, with a long and difficult task of retrieval. On November 16, 2023, the Haji family home in the al-Zaitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City lived happily under one roof, none expecting it to be their last day together. The three-storey building was filled with the lives of more than 30 extended family members, ranging from four-years-old to 40, until an Israeli air raid reduced their home to rubble. Fidaa Haji, 34, and her four children – Raed, Mohammed, Hala and Raghad – who lived in an external room survived, but the rest of the family in the main building – were all killed. They included Fidaa’s husband, Adnan Haji, aged 34. Fidaa and her children headed south for a relatively safer area of Gaza, where they pitched tents on a beach. When a ceasefire was announced in October 2025, they returned to al-Zaitoun and settled temporarily near their former home, but the debris became a daily reminder of their tragic loss weighing down on their hearts. “I can’t imagine that the people I love are still under the rubble… the thought alone breaks me every day,” she told Al Jazeera. “What hurts me more than the loss is that I couldn’t say goodbye or bury them… as if the grief is still suspended.” Later, her brother managed to retrieve Adnan’s body and bury it in the courtyard of al-Shifa Hospital, to put a provisional end to the Fidaa’s agonising limbo, but a proper funeral and farewell is still to happen. No longer a memory Fidaa describes the moment of return as an unexpected confrontation with a place that was no longer the same as when they left. She hesitated to approach the remains of her home, thinking: how can one return to a space that once held all the people she loved, some of whom are still under the ruins? “Every time I return to the place, I try to convince myself it’s not like this…but my mind refuses to believe they ended up under the earth without a farewell,” she said.
As they tried to settle back in their home, a strange smell filled the area. She tried to ignore, but she could not fully accept what had happened. For her children, the experience was even harsher. They were afraid to approach the kitchen or parts of the house, aware that some of their cousins were still lying around them. Her daughter, Hala, suffered visible psychological trauma, affecting her ability to eat and she remained gripped by the fear that her cousins’ bodies were just metres away. In the ruined home, memories were not just images, but a daily source of anxiety embedded in the smallest details of the children’s lives. Among the stories that remain deeply etched in Fidaa’s memory is that of Shireen, her niece, who was twenty years old and an only child. She was killed in the attack, leaving her parents alone again. “I live between the need to continue my life and the fact that a large part of my life is still under the rubble,” she said. A confrontation with the truth On July 1, the Haji family tried to recover the bodies of their loved ones themselves. Despite a lack of resources and heavy equipment, they managed to retrieve six bodies of their family. It was a painful confrontation with a truth postponed for more than two years, especially as identifying the remains was extremely difficult given the length of time since they were killed. Their suffering reflects a broader reality experienced by thousands of families in Gaza. According to Gaza’s Civil Defence, thousands of bodies remain trapped in the ruins of destroyed buildings, while recovery operations continue at a very slow pace due to the severe shortage of excavation equipment. Humanitarian organisations have warned that delays in the retrieval of bodies causes psychological harm to families who live in a state of “suspended grief”. Their loved ones are simultaneously absent and present – neither buried nor farewelled, with no clear end to mourning. Over time, identifying remains becomes increasingly difficult due to decomposition, adding another layer of psychological burden on families who have been waiting for years for answers that have yet to come.
The BriefWire