Buried bodies, cleared rubble, Israel’s yellow line: How war is hampering the search for Gaza’s missing

A child observes emergency crews among the rubble in Gaza City, northern Gaza, on September 8. Around 8,000 people are estimated to be missing, most of whom are likely buried beneath debris after repeated Israeli strikes. Omar Ashtawy/Getty Images The Middle East Israel-Hamas war See all topics Facebook Tweet Email Link Threads Link Copied! Follow Dusk had fallen in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Jabalya when an Israeli quadcopter broke the evening lull on November 1, 2024.

That evening, Mohammad Yousef Shalayel had settled into his in-laws’ home with his wife and children – after visiting 16 relatives displaced at his parents’ house nearby. He didn’t know that would be the last time they saw each other.

An “enormous explosion” rocked the area, “completely collapsing” the Shalayel house. When Shalayel returned to the site of the attack the next morning, “all four floors had fallen on top of one another, on the people who were inside,” he said.

Among them were his elderly mother, his two brothers and his sister, and their children and in-laws, too.

“I will never forget… I found dismembered remains of children and women,” he told CNN in late September. “I broke down, but I tried to hold myself together so that I could gather the pieces of flesh that were scattered around.”

Nearly two years later, Shalayel has been unable to return because the Israeli military has since occupied more than half of the shattered territory. He says almost all his family members remain unaccounted for.

Mohammad Yousef Shalayel (center), shown with two of his children, recalled the “horrific sight” of his relatives’ bodies after an Israeli strike in Jabalya, northern Gaza in November, 2024. Tareq El-Hilou/CNN Amid the ruins of Gaza, Palestinians say they are trying to survive a conflict with no clear end in sight.

Three years after Hamas and other militant groups killed around 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023 – and a year after a US-brokered ceasefire was supposed to end the ensuing war in Gaza – Israeli strikes remain a near daily occurrence. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 74,000 people have been killed in the coastal enclave during the Israeli offensive. And the number may still rise significantly.

Some 8,000 people are reported missing, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense, most of whom are likely buried beneath what the United Nations estimated last year to be 61 million tonnes of rubble.

And with each day that passes, the chances of identifying the dead grow slimmer as “crucial evidence” is lost, said Pat Griffiths, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem.

Under international humanitarian law, the parties to an armed conflict “have an obligation to conduct search and recovery work” for the remains of those killed, missing or injured, and to collect, preserve and transfer that information to the other side, Griffiths told CNN.

Under the October 2025 ceasefire plan, Israeli forces were instructed to withdraw to the “yellow line,” which demarcated occupied areas. That shifting demarcation zone has blocked Palestinians from accessing swathes of land where their loved ones could be buried under the rubble, residents and aid workers say.

Several people in Jabalya told CNN they witnessed the Israeli military demolishing mosques, homes and buildings or clearing rubble near the yellow line.

“Where are the bones of our loved ones?” asked one resident, Yahya Odeh. “Where are their bodies? There are entire families beyond the yellow line who have been separated from their relatives.”

In September, the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, warned against the clearance of rubble in areas under Israeli military control “by bulldozers with no respect for the dead,” after Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based NGO, reported that such activity could erase evidence of war crimes.

Israeli forces use bulldozers east of Jabalya, northern Gaza, on April 13. Human rights groups have warned the use of heavy machinery to clear rubble could erase evidence of possible war crimes. Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Getty Images Türk said the recovery of “what appears to be entire families” from under the rubble in areas accessible to Palestinians highlights the need for evidence of possible war crimes to be preserved, and called for international investigators to be given access to all of Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel’s restrictions on heavy machinery entering Gaza have prolonged recovery efforts in parts of the enclave where Israeli troops are not currently present, Palestinian officials say.

In August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a 15-point plan laying out a pathway to long-term stability in Gaza, insisting Israel’s forces would not withdraw “until Hamas is genuinely disarmed.” The militant group in turn demanded that the Israeli military stop striking Gaza and pull back to the yellow line, as set out in the ceasefire plan.

Last year, an independent UN inquiry found Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a finding rejected by the Israeli government.

In parts of Gaza accessible to Palestinians, Civil Defense members scour bombed-out homes for the remains of missing people.

Since last October, field crews have recovered around 1,000 bodies from the rubble, according to Mahmoud Basal, the Civil Defense spokesperson. But only one excavator is available in Gaza City, with another in central Gaza, said Basal, adding that operations could be “completed” if Israeli authorities were to provide the 10 excavators, 10 bulldozers and 30 trucks requested by Palestinian officials.

The Israeli aid agency tasked with facilitating the entry of aid into Gaza, COGAT, said Israel has allowed in “essential equipment” including engine oil, medical supplies and tents. However, COGAT insisted authorities would withhold heavy machinery and reconstruction materials until Hamas disarmed, according to Reuters.

Recovery efforts are made more dangerous by the presence of unexploded ordnance, said Griffiths. Many rescue workers are “literally scraping away, a few centimeters at a time,” he added.

When they do find buried Palestinians, some show signs of having been eaten by rodents or stray dogs, said Basal. Shalayel told CNN how he wrapped a blanket around his brother’s arm, which protruded from the rubble of their parents’ house, to try to protect it from an “enormous number” of roaming dogs. “It was a horrific sight,” he said.

“In the end, the family tries to comfort itself by believing that all of its relatives have been recovered from beneath the rubble,” Basal said. “But we cannot state (that) with certainty.”

Dr. Ahmad Dheir is one of only three remaining specialist forensic doctors in the enclave, he said.

Even before the war, doctors had no access to DNA testing facilities, Dheir said, after a years-long blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt limited the entry of medical supplies.

The slow eradication of Gaza’s medical infrastructure – following repeated Israeli strikes on health centers – has made medical workers even more reliant on elementary identification techniques, said Griffiths.

When rescue teams deliver unidentified bodies to hospitals, the lack of freezer storage, fuel shortages and frequent power cuts hasten the deterioration of samples, said Dheir.

With no DNA testing available, health workers have resorted to inconclusive blood typing and laboratory tests, condemning many relatives to a perpetual state of uncertainty, he said.

Suha al-Sharif’s son, Jihad, was supposed to care for his mother in old age. Instead, his absence is her only companion.

“When Jihad left, I realized that he was the one carrying me. He was my strength,” the 55-year-old told CNN.

Jihad, 33, was shot and killed on November 9, 2023 – when the family was displaced from Gaza City, Al-Sharif said. His body was taken to Al-Shifa Hospital, in the north, but Israel’s intensifying attacks meant health staffers could not bury people. Again, the family were forced to flee, journeying south. Nearly three years later, Al-Sharif has not been able to find him. “The hardest thing is that I couldn’t bury him; I don’t know where his body is,” she said.

“At night, when I put my head on my pillow, memories come back,” she added. “There is nothing left to cry for. My life feels over.”

People are forced to flee south after Israeli attacks in Gaza City, on September 16. Those with missing relatives are “trapped between hope and grief, waiting, and fear,” according to Israa Alqahwaji, a Palestinian aid worker. Habboub Ramez/ABACA/Shutterstock Her sense of dispossession reflects that of many survivors in Gaza. Palestinians whose relatives are still missing have been presenting signs of “ambiguous loss” – a situational disorder where people feel lost, unable to concentrate, anxious, depressive or guilty, two aid workers told CNN.

Some people pray, preserve photographs or loved ones’ belongings to “keep their memory alive,” according to Israa Alqahwaji, the mental health program coordinator in Gaza for the UK-based NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians. Wanting to find a person’s body “reflects a very deep human need for truth,” Alqahwaji said.

“Continuing to live does not mean abandoning or forgetting the person they have lost,” she added.

Young men conduct burials at the cemetery of the missing in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza on February 13. Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images In Deir al-Balah a cemetery of the missing, as locals call it, has become a totem for the unknown fate of hundreds of Palestinians.

About 1,000 unidentified people have been buried there, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense. Authorities have been working with international aid agencies to build a digital information sharing system, ascribing serial numbers to unnamed graves so that if DNA testing becomes possible, loved ones may be able to identify their relatives in years to come.

“We believe these people and their families have a right, as a matter of human dignity, to find their loved ones,” said Dheir.

Shalayel hopes that one day he will find his family and lay them to rest with dignity. “For us, the people of Gaza, there is a well-known saying: Honoring the dead means burying them. Our religion, customs and traditions teach us that when someone dies, they should be buried, and their burial place should be known.”

Tareq El-Hilou, Muhammad Al-Sawalhi, Eyad Kourdi, Sarah-Grace Mankarious and Henry Zeris contributed reporting.