Guns may have fallen silent in Gaza, but for Mahmoud Abu Dalfa, the agony is not over. He is desperately searching for the bodies of his wife and five children trapped under the rubble of his house since the early months of the war.
Abu Dalfa's wife and children were among 35 of his extended family who were killed when an Israeli air strike hit the building in Gaza City's Shejaia suburb in December 2023, he said. As bombs continued to fall, only three bodies were retrieved.
"My children are still under the rubble. I am trying to get them out... The civil defence came, they tried, but the destruction makes it difficult. We don't have the equipment here to extract martyrs. We need excavators and a lot of technical tools," Abu Dalfa said.
"My wife was killed along with all my five children - three daughters and two sons. I had triplets," he said.
Burials are usually carried out within a few hours of death in Muslim and Arab communities, and failure to retrieve bodies and ensure dignified burials is agonising for bereaved families.
"I hope I can bring them out and make them a grave. That's all I want from this entire world. I don’t want them to build me a house or give me anything else. All I want is a grave for them - to get them out and make them a grave," said Abu Dalfa.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service and medical staff have recovered around 200 bodies since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into effect on Sunday, halting a 15-month brutal war that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
'There is no grave for him'
Mahmoud Basal, the head of the service, said extraction operations have been challenged by the lack of earth-moving and heavy machinery, adding that Israel had destroyed several of their vehicles and killed at least 100 of their staff.
Basal estimates the bodies of around 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israel are yet to be found and buried.
A UN damage assessment released this month showed that clearing over 50 million tonnes of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel's bombardment could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion.
Like Abu Dalfa, thousands of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are searching for the bodies of relatives either missing under the rubble or buried in mass graves during Israeli brutal attacks.
Rabah Abulias, a 68-year-old father who lost his son Ashraf in an Israeli attack, wants to give his son a proper grave.
"I know where Ashraf is buried, but his body is with dozens of others, there is no grave for him, there is no tombstone that carries his name," he said via a chat app from Gaza City.
"I want to make him a grave, where I can visit him, talk to him and tell him I am sorry I wasn't there for him."
