Gaza rescues take into account the extent of the destruction

In the first full day of peace in Gaza on Monday, rescue workers and civilians began to take stock of the sheer scale of the destruction in the Strip.

Gaza’s Civil Defense agency – the strip’s main emergency response service – said it feared more than 10,000 bodies were still buried under the vast sea of ​​rubble.

Spokesman Mahmoud Basal told the BBC they hoped to recover the dead within 100 days, but that could be delayed due to a shortage of bulldozers and other essential equipment.

New images from Gaza following Sunday’s cease-fire showed scenes of utter devastation during the 15-month Israeli offensive, particularly in the enclave’s north.

The UN has previously estimated that 60% of Gaza’s structures have been damaged or destroyed.

Although the sounds of shelling were replaced by celebrations when the cease-fire began on Sunday, the reality people are living in across Gaza remains desperate.

According to the UN’s World Food Program (WFP), the war has left more than two million Gazans homeless, without income, and completely dependent on food aid for survival.

Aid began pouring into Gaza immediately after Sunday’s ceasefire and the UN said at least 630 trucks had entered the Strip before the end of the day – the highest number since the war began 15 months ago.

Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said the aid supplies were just the beginning of the challenge of restoring life to the strip.

“We are not only talking about food, health, buildings, roads, infrastructure, we have people, families and communities that need to be rebuilt,” he said.

“The trauma, the suffering, the loss, the grief, the humiliation and the cruelty of the last 16 months – it’s going to be a very, very long road.”

In Israel, the families of the three hostages freed in the first exchange spoke at a press conference in Tel Aviv on Monday night. Mandy Damari, the mother of Emily Damari, a dual Israeli and British citizen, said Emily was “in good spirits” and “on the road to recovery” despite losing two fingers in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Meirav Leshem Gonen, Romi Gonen’s mother, said: “We got our Romi back, but all families deserve the same result, the living and the dead. Our hearts go out to the other families.”

Ahead of the news, Israeli authorities released new photos of 28-year-old Damari, 24-year-old Gonen and 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher greeting their tearful mothers moments after they left Gaza on Sunday.

If the first phase of the ceasefire holds, 30 more hostages will be released from Gaza in the next 40 days in exchange for around 1,800 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons.

Palestinian health authorities estimate that more than 46,900 people have been killed and more than 110,700 injured in the more than 15 months of war in Gaza.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says the majority of the dead are women and children, a UN-backed statement.

A UK-led study published in the medical journal The Lancet this month suggested that health ministry figures underestimate the death toll by more than 40%.

Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said in a statement on Monday that 48 percent of its personnel had been killed, wounded or arrested in the conflict, and 85 percent of its vehicles and 17 of its 21 facilities had been damaged or destroyed.

Although the danger of airstrikes has disappeared, for now, the hard work continues for the rest of the Civil Defense staff. Pictures shared with the BBC by members of the agency in northern Gaza on Monday showed them doing gruesome work, including recovering dead babies and human remains in poor condition.

“There are dead people in every street. There are people under buildings in every neighborhood,” said Abdullah Al-Majdalawi, a 24-year-old Civil Defense worker in Gaza City.

“Even after the ceasefire we received many calls from people saying please come, my family is buried under the rubble.”

Malaak Kasab, a 23-year-old graduate recently displaced from Gaza City, told the BBC on Monday that members of his family were among those still unrecovered.

“We have lost many members of our family and some are still under the destroyed buildings,” he said. “There are a lot of people under the rubble, everyone knows about it.”

Kasab’s family home in an apartment building was not completely destroyed, he said, but badly damaged. “There are no doors, no windows, no water, no electricity, nothing. Not even wood for a fire. It’s unlivable.”

The move is still dangerous for displaced Gazans, as the Israeli army begins the process of withdrawing from populated areas in the Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has warned people not to approach its personnel or facilities, or to enter the buffer zone it created around the Gaza border and the Netzarim Corridor that separates central and southern Gaza.

But many residents were eager to see what was left of their homes before they were advised. Hatem Eliwah, a 42-year-old factory manager in Gaza City, said he was considering walking out of his shelter in the southern town of Khan Younis.

“We have been waiting for this ceasefire like people waiting to enter heaven,” Eliwah said. “I lost my two brothers and their families. I lost my cousins, my uncles. The only thing I’m still hoping for is to go home.”

There is considerable concern on both sides that the deal could collapse even before the end of the first phase in about six weeks, and Israel has insisted it reserves the right to resume military action in Gaza at any time.

At a meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the agreement as a “ray of hope” and said his obligations must be met.

But Guterres warned that the situation is worse in the occupied West Bank, where there has been a dramatic increase in attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian towns since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.

“Senior Israeli officials openly talk about formally annexing all or part of the West Bank in the coming months,” Guterres said, adding: “Such an annexation would be the most serious violation of international law.”

Muath Al-Khatib contributed to this report