Grieving Gaza father searches for family buried under rubble

DW (English)

In Gaza, the bodies of thousands of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes remain trapped under the rubble. Without heavy machinery, however, rescue efforts are stalled. DW accompanied a grieving father on his mission to retrieve the remains of his wife and children.

Transcript

00:00Walking through what was shot at refugee camp in Gaza City is not easy.

00:07It was here that Hanil Daifi's entire family was killed.

00:12The bodies of his wife and two of his children are still buried somewhere under the rubble.

00:19But he's just one of thousands of people in Gaza asking for help.

00:25I appealed to everyone, left nothing undone.

00:28I posted on social media, I reached out to civil defense.

00:31I personally went to the emergency and local committees.

00:33I notified everyone simply so that I can honor my wife and children by burying them so that I can sleep.

00:41It was over a month ago that the Israeli Air Force bombed the area as the military advanced into Gaza City.

00:48Hanil says his family of six had planned to leave for the South later that day.

00:53He was taking dough to the nearby communal bakery when the house was hit.

00:58He found one of his sons in the street.

01:00There was a body here, my son Bashir.

01:05Honestly, I couldn't recognize him.

01:07No head, no body, nothing.

01:09Only his hand was there and someone brought his foot.

01:12He was able to bury the body parts of his two eldest sons.

01:17But his wife and their two younger children are still under the rubble.

01:22And he can't get to them without heavy machinery.

01:25On the day of the truce, the first day of the truce, there was long hair here under this concrete slab.

01:32And I honestly thought it was my wife.

01:35We dug, I brought my brothers and the neighborhood folks, we dug by hand as you can see here.

01:42We kept digging and digging until we reached it and found the bone dissolved.

01:46But the hair was still there.

01:48When we got there, we found this half missing and the other half like this.

01:51So I thought it was my wife.

01:52But it was the body of the neighbor's daughter.

02:03More than 10,000 bodies are still buried under the rubble,

02:08says Gaza's Hamas government-run civil defense.

02:13During the war, the rescue services were overwhelmed with calls for help.

02:17Now, they're having to focus on what they can do.

02:31For many of them, we can't do anything.

02:34Meaning if there's a family under the rubble, with lots of debris and concrete,

02:39we can't do anything for them.

02:40Now we're working on recovering bodies that are easier to retrieve, like bodies in the roads,

02:46bodies in the streets, bodies that can be brought out from the rubble if the building is small.

02:51For Hani Daifi, the loss is overwhelming.

02:59My future is over, honestly.

03:03Right now, all I'm thinking about is to bury my wife and children and go out and try to see what

03:07life I have left. My children were the apple of my eye. My eldest was 13 and a half. At school,

03:13my children were among the top in West Gaza. He says he's unable to grieve until he can bury his

03:23family with dignity, just like many others across Gaza.

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