In Gaza City, torture occurred while searching for bodies among the rubble
In front of the mound of rubble that stood at the site of his house, Ahmed Salim could not hold back his tears. It was here that the bodies of his loved ones were found, held captive in the rubble and he hoped to bury them with dignity.
For this 43 year old man, the wait has been almost a year. On December 25, 2024, his five-story house was bombed, he said, from the Zeitoun neighborhood in eastern Gaza City. “There are thirty deaths, he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), my wife, my children, my mother, my father and others… I was the only one who survived. » “The only thing that matters to me is being able to bury him.”he added.
However, like thousands of other Palestinians in the region, he cannot access his loved ones, who are buried under much rubble. According to UN data analyzed by AFP, the destruction of three-quarters of buildings by the Israeli army buried the Palestinian territories with 61.5 million tons of rubble in two years of war, equivalent to 6,000 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
And the clearing equipment is very lacking “remove the roof and tons of cement covering the bodies”explained Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for civil defense in Gaza, a first aid organization under Hamas authority. He estimated that around 10,000 bodies were still buried in the rubble.
“The world is unfair, we see bulldozers digging up the ground to take out Israeli prisoners while no one cares about our thousands of martyrs”said Amal Abdel Aal, 57 years old. The bodies of his son and his brother have been lying in Gaza City neighborhoods since the start of the war. “They never leave my mind. My heart races at the thought of dogs getting to their bodies and eating them. I’ll only be relieved when I’ve buried them, even if there’s only one bone left.”confided in people who now live several kilometers away, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“Why doesn’t the world treat Palestinian bodies the same way (versus Israeli hostages) ? »desperate Iyad Rayan who also longs to be able to bury his loved ones. “My wife, my son Samir and my daughter Lana are still here (…). I want to ask the whole world: help me find them”he told AFP in front of the ruins of his house in Gaza, which he said was destroyed in early October.
