The search for Gaza’s missing brings heartbreak and closure for loved ones

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.

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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.

The recovery of bodies in northern Gaza [Lina Abuzayed/Al Jazeera]

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.

Ismail al-Thawabta, the Director of the Government Media Office in Gaza, said that reality reflects a complex humanitarian crisis that creates deep psychological and social impacts on families.

“Thousands of bodies are still under the rubble due to the difficulty of access and the lack of heavy equipment needed for recovery operations,” said al-Thawabta.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Government Media Office [Lina Abuzayed/Al Jazeera]

A lack of storage continues to hinder the work of Gaza’s Civil Defence and creates a “state of unclosed loss”, where families endure ongoing trauma from the inability to bid farewell to their loved ones.

It has left deep psychological scars within families and across Gaza society, especially among children growing up without definitive answers about the fate of their mothers, fathers or siblings.

The ‘silent war’ of the Civil Defence

Abdullah al-Majdalawi, Director of Public Relations and Media at Civil Defence said their teams are working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been able to provide excavators for recovery operations.

“The project duration is only 400 hours, which is barely enough for a small number of houses,” he said.

This has forced teams to prioritise sites based on specific criteria, often those with the highest number of casualties. The process relies on small details such as testimonies from survivors or neighbours, personal belongings such as a piece of clothing or reading glasses that may help search teams locate human remains.

“Sometimes we go in with primitive tools, cutting through iron with hammers and simple equipment, standing helpless before thousands of tonnes of concrete,” he said.

“One of the hardest moments is when I’m holding only three or four bones of a human body and I go to hand them over to the family who had been waiting to find their son or daughter. Sometimes families tell us: bring us anything from them, any memory, any bone we can bury.”

Abdullah Al-Majdalawi, Director of Public Relations and Media at the Civil Defence in Gaza [Lina Abuzayed/Al Jazeera] (Al Jazeera)

Those scenes leave a deep psychological impact on Civil Defence workers. Despite the public perception of them as stalwart and resilient, unmoved by their duties, they are constantly confronted with the remnants of bodies and the screams of mothers. It becomes part of the “silent war” that stays with them long after their workday ends.

“People see the Civil Defence men as strong and brave, but on the inside, they are on the verge of crying,” he said.

“My hardest moments are during downtime, because that’s when the voices of children under the rubble come back in my mind: ‘Uncle, why did they kill us? Uncle, where are we?’ Our constant prayer as Civil Defence teams is: God, keep our minds steady after all the terror and horror we have seen.”

The recovery of bodies in northern Gaza [Lina Abuzayed/Al Jazeera]

Al-Majdalawi remembers one moment during a recovery operation that will likely stay with him forever, when his team worked among the rubble to find a body while the family waited nearby.

They found the remains of a young girl, but just her scalp, making identification possible only through fine details, such as hair colour and partially preserved facial features. He said it was one of the most difficult experiences in his life.

During excavation at a bombed house believed to contain about 45 bodies, work continued for three consecutive days, yet only two were found – a mother and her child. Despite their best efforts, teams were unable to locate the others.

“There was no trace left…we didn’t find any bone or anything,” he added. “Families cling to any small sign… anything that proves this is their son or daughter.”

Such experiences create a “continuous shock” for civil defence teams, with a new phase of pain with every attempt at identification, understanding or acceptance.

Between unforgotten images, places that are no longer safe for memory and bodies that have not yet been buried, grief turns into a long-term burden, with no real opportunity for closure or healing, both for families and rescuers alike.