Every morning, Yasser Abu Shamala, 51, walks to the place where his family’s home once stood in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. He begins searching through the rubble with his bare hands, lifting pieces of concrete to try to find his family members buried under the rubble.
Abu Shamala’s family home was bombed by Israeli forces on October 26, demolishing the building and killing his parents, brothers and cousins. The strike killed 22 people and many others were left trapped under the rubble.
Abu Shamala’s family members are among more than 7,000 people missing in Gaza, including 4,900 children and women. The missing are believed to be trapped under bombed buildings, according to Hamas officials in Gaza.
Despite multiple failed attempts, Abu Shamala refuses to give up and has vowed to continue searching for his loved ones and recovering their bodies from beneath the ruins of the house. He hopes to be able to bury them in a cemetery with proper Islamic rituals.
Israel has dropped thousands of bombs on Gaza since October 7, the day the war began with Hamas attacks on southern Israel. This war is considered one of the most destructive and deadly in recent times, having killed nearly 21,000 people in Gaza and 1,139 in Israel, injured nearly 55,000 Palestinians and at least 8,730 in Israel, and destroyed or damaged at least 60 percent of Gaza’s population. residential units.
As the war continues, it becomes increasingly difficult to find and rescue those trapped under the rubble.
