It has been described as one of the most gruelling recovery efforts in modern warfare.

As negotiations over the fragile Gaza ceasefire continue, Palestinians have started to dig through 61m tonnes of debris, 20 times more than the combined mass of all debris generated by conflicts since 2008. Underneath, at least 10,000 people are thought to be buried.

The Guardian spoke with several families in Gaza desperately searching for the bodies of their missing relatives, as well as members of the Palestinian civil defence, a branch of the security services responsible for emergency services and rescue operations. Photos, video footage and data shed light on the scale of the task ahead.

Rescue teams have so far had to rely on rudimentary tools – shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows, rakes, hoes – and their bare hands. Requests to Israel to allow the entry of excavators and heavy machinery so they can work more effectively have received no response.

“The whole world has seen the equipment that was brought in to retrieve the bodies of Israeli hostages [including bulldozers and excavators],” said Dr Mohammed al-Mughir, the director of humanitarian support and international cooperation at the civil defence. “We also need the same equipment to retrieve our bodies.”

View image in fullscreen Members of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and Egyptian workers use a bulldozer to search for the bodies of Israeli hostages in a tunnel discovered in Khan Younis. Photograph: Jehad Alshrafi/AP

Gaza’s ministry of health and civil defence estimates about 10,000 people are still buried in the rubble. Some experts believe the number could be as high as 14,000.

According to the health ministry, 472 bodies were recovered during the first 16 days of the ceasefire and taken to hospital morgues for identification. This number does not include the 195 bodies returned by Israel as part of the ceasefire agreement.

Even if Israel were to allow excavators and bulldozers into Gaza today, civil defence officials estimate it would take up to nine months to recover the majority of the bodies.

The agency says recovery efforts so far have been limited to small houses and apartment blocks of one or two floors, where rescuers are able to reach bodies using the few tools at their disposal.

“The problem comes when you’re dealing with buildings [that were] seven or eight storeys high – that’s when we need the heavy equipment, we’re still waiting to be allowed to bring in,” said Mughir.

In the meantime, hundreds of families queue every day at hospitals and offices of the health ministry and civil defence, seeking information about missing relatives. Mughir said that at the civil defence headquarters in Gaza City alone, upwards of 30 families a day ask for help trying to locate and recover their loved ones.

Still buried a year on

On 29 October 2024, the five-storey house in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, where Aya Abu Nasr’s extended family lived collapsed after an Israeli airstrike.

“Most of my family members had been staying on the ground and first floors,” said Nasr, 26. “I lost five of my siblings – two brothers and three sisters – along with all their families. More than 100 members of my extended family died in that strike, and about 50 of them are still under the rubble to this day, a full year later.”

View image in fullscreen Aya Abu Nasr, whose home in Beit Lahiya was hit by an Israeli airstrike in October 2024. Photograph: Amjed Tantesh/The Guardian

Nasr said she has tried repeatedly to recover the bodies, but their remains are scattered between the ground and first floors. Retrieving them without excavators, she explained, was impossible.

Since the start of the war, hundreds of missing person reports have been filed with the civil defence authorities. Officials say they already have estimates of how many bodies are believed to lie beneath specific buildings and houses.

“In Rafah, there are more than 35 houses containing about 170 dead bodies,” said Mughir. “In Khan Younis and the eastern regions of the strip, there are many buildings under which hundreds of other bodies remain unrecovered.”

Because of repeated displacements and evacuation orders across the Gaza Strip, thousands of families have been separated from their loved ones. Many know their relatives were killed, based on accounts from friends or neighbours, but have no idea where their bodies lie.

The last time Hadeel Shahiber, from western Gaza, saw her parents and siblings was on 8 November 2023, when the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of Gaza City, including the area around al-Shifa hospital, as part of its expanding ground operation against Hamas. Shahiber, now 34, decided to remain in the port area, while her relatives fled to the neighbourhood of al-Sabra. Nine days later they were all killed in an Israeli airstrike.

View image in fullscreen Hadeel Shahiber lost her entire family almost two years ago. Photograph: Amjed Tantesh/The Guardian

“Weeks later, when I finally managed to reach al-Sabra, a man stopped us, holding a list of names of those who had been identified among the dead,” Shahiber said. “The first names on it were my father, Nabil, my mother, my siblings. During the first ceasefire in January, more than a year after their deaths, we were finally able to recover and properly bury some of them, including my parents. But some bodies are still trapped under the rubble.

“Knowing that some of my loved ones remain under the rubble, denied a proper burial that would honour their dignity, fills me with pain and sorrow.”

The need to identify victims

Identifying the bodies is not just a question of restoring dignity to the dead; it is also necessary for the health of the living. Psychologists described the unresolved grief of relatives of the unidentified dead as an “ambiguous loss” which can generate or contribute to depression, trauma and identity confusion, a situational disorder widespread in Gaza.

The few remaining hospitals in the territory lack the equipment for DNA testing, which is desperately needed to help identify thousands of missing or deceased peope. Israel does not allow DNA testing materials to enter Gaza.

For that reason, as well as the advanced state of decomposition of many of the bodies, forensic doctors often struggle to identify victims.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire, Israel – in exchange for the remains of 15 hostages returned by Hamas – handed over 195 bodies of Palestinians to Gaza. Several of them were blindfolded, bound at the hands and feet, or bore gunshot wounds.

Dozens of bodies have since been identified, but at least 54 unidentified Palestinians returned from Israel were buried this month.

View image in fullscreen Bodies of unidentified Palestinians returned from Israel are buried in a mass grave in Deir al-Balah. Photograph: Jehad Alshrafi/AP

The Polish poet and recipient of the 1996 Nobel prize in Literature, Wisława Szymborska, wrote that “after every war, someone has to clean up. Someone has to push the rubble to the side of the road, so the corpse-filled wagons can pass.”

Jaco Cilliers, the special representative of the United Nations developing programme of assistance to the Palestinian people, outlined the scale of that operation in Gaza.

“The initial part is really to clear the roads and to make the hospitals, schools and other social buildings accessible, so that’s where the major rubble is being removed,” Cilliers said. “If you built a 12-metre wall around Central Park and filled it with rubble, that’s the amount that needs to be removed.”

The UN environment programme has calculated that it would take seven years for 105 trucks to remove all the debris. Vehicles would need to navigate a shattered landscape where 77% of the road network has been damaged. Many routes have been destroyed altogether, obstructed or otherwise rendered impassable.

The work is made even more difficult and perilous by the presence of hazardous debris, such as unexploded ordnance and asbestos, the United Nations’ Gaza debris management working group has said.

Since October 2023, the United Nations mine action service has logged 147 incidents related to ordnance in rubble, resulting in 52 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

The UNMAS programme chief, Luke Irving, said: “The risk that you have now is that, on ceasefire conditions, people will go back to where their old houses and business were, and they want to return to normal, which is completely understandable. And by starting to move rubble, inevitably, if there has been heavy fighting in the area, they’re going to find explosive ordnance.”

For now, any hopes in Gaza of a sufficiently comprehensive rubble-clearing operation – and a return to normal life more generally – have been repeatedly dashed by ongoing Israeli strikes.

The territory resembles a patchwork of concrete shells and shattered walls, neighbourhoods pockmarked with craters, mounds of rubble and roads to nowhere. The question that remains is not what might fall next, but what, if anything, can stand again.

Less than two weeks after the U.S.-brokered October 2025 ceasefire took effect in Gaza, Israel unleashed a wave of strikes on the enclave, claiming retaliation for Hamas allegedly killing two Israeli soldiers . Israel claimed Hamas operatives emerged from tunnels and fired grenades at least one excavator (equipment Israel claimed was operating in accordance with the ceasefire), killing the soldiers before Hamas snipers injured three more troops.

Hamas denied responsibility, claiming the group had no knowledge of or communication with any “remaining groups” in the area, which it noted was a red zone “under the occupation’s control.” There was no primary evidence indicating Hamas fighters killed the soldiers; the only source of the claim stemmed from an internal Israeli military probe.

Claims an excavator drove over unexploded ordnance, inadvertently killing the soldiers, were purely speculative — though there is documented, visual evidence of systemic demolition work using excavators in Gaza and longstanding reports regarding the dangers of unexploded ordnance across Gaza since at least 2019.

Israel blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants for “planning” to attack troops as a reason for Israel’s reportedly striking a refugee camp in Gaza on Oct. 25, an accusation the group denied.

Israel has, as of this writing, launched three waves of airstrikes on Gaza since the U.S.-brokered deal went into effect, claiming that, in addition to Hamas militants allegedly killing the two soldiers, Hamas failed to return all the remains of dead hostages, per the agreement. Hamas repeatedly stated that full recovery of the bodies was proving difficult given the amount of rubble in Gaza, and responded to the Oct. 28 airstrikes by reportedly saying it would delay handing over the body of a hostage it uncovered.

On Oct. 8, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had signed off on the first phase of his ceasefire deal, releasing much-needed aid into Gaza and commencing a hostage exchange process in which Hamas released all surviving hostages and Israel released 250 prisoners as well as nearly 2,000 detainees it held without charges.

Less than two weeks later, Israel launched a wave of strikes on Gaza. According to the Gaza Media Office, several Israeli attacks had killed more than 40 Palestinians as of Oct. 19. Israel carried out an airstrike over the weekend of Oct. 25, and on Oct. 28, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a series of “powerful strikes.”

Israel said the attacks were retaliation for Hamas allegedly killing two Israeli soldiers — Yaniv Kula and Itay Yavetz — and also claimed Hamas was failing to uphold the ceasefire by not returning all the remains of dead hostages. Hamas has said recovery is difficult given the degree of destruction in Gaza — more than 84% of the region is in ruins.

Posts circulated online repeating (archived, archived, archived, archived) Israel’s claim that Hamas violated the ceasefire by killing the soldiers, while others shared (archived, archived) Hamas’ denial of the accusation . Some posts (archived, archived) claimed private contractors were injured while demolishing homes in Gaza.

Here’s what we know:

Is there proof Hamas violated the ceasefire?

On Oct. 18, the U.S. State Department released a statement (archived) claiming it had “credible reports indicating an imminent ceasefire violation by Hamas against the people of Gaza,” an accusation Hamas denied.

There was no evidence Hamas fighters killed the Israeli soldiers other than the statements made by the Israeli military, which has a history of spreading disinformation. In a statement reported by many reputable news outlets, Hamas’ military wing responded to the accusation:

We reaffirm our full commitment to implement everything that was agreed upon, foremost of which is a ceasefire across all areas of the Gaza Strip. We have no knowledge of any incidents or clashes taking place in the Rafah area, as these are red zones under the occupation’s control, and contact with the remaining groups of ours there has been cut off since the war resumed in March of this year.

The official Israeli government record said the soldiers “fell in combat in the southern Gaza Strip” on Oct. 19 without describing how. News outlet Haaretz said the Israeli military claimed the Hamas fighters emerged from tunnels and fired rocket-propelled grenades at military excavators operating in an Israeli zone in accordance with the cease-fire agreement.” The Israeli military posted on X (archived), “Terrorists fired an anti-tank missile and gunfire toward IDF [Israel Defense Forces] troops operating to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the Rafah area, in southern Gaza, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement.”

The Times of Israel reported that an initial Israeli military probe found the operatives “emerged from tunnels” and fired rocket-propelled grenades at an excavator, killing the two soldiers. Snipers allegedly wounded three more soldiers — all heavy machinery operators — including one who was seriously injured, according to the report. The Times of Israel reported that the military investigation found that the fighters “made no attempt to abduct soldiers in the incident.”

A spokesperson for the Israeli military pointed Snopes to an X post in which a video allegedly shows militants on the ground with guns before Israel targeted them with an airstrike. The video is unverified, and claims to depict Beit Lahia, a city in northern Gaza (which is on the opposite side of the enclave to where Israel claimed the Hamas militants killed the soldiers).

(X user @LTC_Shoshani)

It’s unclear whether the property demolition operation — allegedly Israeli military-facilitated — was a violation of the ceasefire, given that the deal required “all military operations” to be suspended. “The troops had been operating in the area — under Israeli control as part of the ceasefire — to clear it of Hamas infrastructure, with the assumption that gunmen could still be holed up in the terror group’s tunnels,” the Times of Israel reported.

In short, there was no primary evidence (for example, video footage, autopsy results or even witness accounts) indicating Hamas fighters killed the two soldiers and injured the other machinery operators. This claim stemmed entirely from the Israeli military.

Did excavators run over unexploded ordnance?

Several highly-circulated posts (archived, archived, archived) claimed that rather than Hamas fighters emerging from tunnels, the excavators ran over unexploded ordnance left by Israeli strikes, killing the two soldiers and injuring others in the vicinity. Unexploded ordnance is explosives that fail to deploy and can remain hazardous for decades.

One such post (archived) by Ryan Grim, co-founder of nonprofit investigative site Drop Site News, received more than 7 million views. It read:

Soon after the explosion in Rafah, I’m told by a source familiar, the White House and Pentagon knew that the incident was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over unexploded ordnance — contradicting Netanyahu’s claim that Hamas had popped up from tunnels. After Netanyahu said he was blocking all aid from entering Gaza in response, and unleashed a bombing campaign, the administration conveyed to Israel that they know what happened. Netanyahu then announced he would re-open the crossings in a few hours.

Grim did not name his source or their credentials, and it’s unclear whether the U.S. government knew “what happened” or conveyed that to the Israeli government. We reached out to the White House for comment and a spokesperson directed us to U.S. Central Command, who referred us to the Israeli military. We will update this story if we receive a response.

Younis Tirawi, a journalist on the ground in Gaza, claimed (archived) on Oct. 19, the day Israel said the soldiers were killed, “A group of settlers who own private companies for demolishing houses have been continuing for a week to demolish what remains of Rafah’s houses. Today, two of them were injured, most likely due to an explosive device that their vehicle passed over.” He also claimed (archived) that Israel issued a “gag order” on the “incident in Rafah.”

Tirawi then posted (archived) he was unaware of Israel’s official statement regarding the killing of the two soldiers, and apologized for causing confusion. (These posts collectively received hundreds of thousands of views.) We reached out to Tirawi seeking information regarding details around the alleged private companies and will update this story if we receive a response.

According to investigations by Israeli news outlets Haaretz and The Marker as well as a U.N. report, the Israeli military has been directly involved with the systemic demolition of property in Gaza for many months.

There is also visual, documented proof of demolition of homes and infrastructure using excavators in Gaza going back months. Israeli statements have claimed its operations in certain areas were in line with the ceasefire. (The ceasefire dictated a gradual withdrawal of Israeli military presence — a significant area “across the yellow line” remains in Israeli control, as of this writing.)

Additionally, the danger of unexploded weapons in Gaza has been an issue the United Nations has raised alarm bells over since at least 2019.

A May 2024 U.N. report claimed, “The risk of exposure to unexploded ordnance is at its “most dangerous stage.” Another U.N. report from later that month said “UN Mine Action Service officers said the war has already left behind around 37 million tonnes of debris, and it could take 14 years to make Gaza safe from unexploded bombs.”

In sum, there was no primary evidence proving claims that the soldiers died when excavators triggered unexploded ordnance. Reports from news outlets and the U.N. indicate a history of unexploded weapons in Gaza as well as Israeli involvement in property demolition using excavators, but claims that the soldiers died in an accidental explosion were speculative.

Did Israel or Hamas otherwise violate the ceasefire?

The October 2025 ceasefire required Hamas to return all remaining hostages as well as all the remains of dead hostages (Israel agreed to return the remains of 15 Palestinians for every returned hostage). In the days that followed the ceasefire going into effect, Hamas recovered 15 out of the 28 bodies, as of this writing.

Israel has accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire by allegedly withholding remains of hostages. Hamas has repeatedly stated that it is difficult to locate all the bodies of the hostages because many are buried under the rubble of Israeli-destroyed infrastructure.

“Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Oct. 25.

On Oct. 26, Israel confirmed that it allowed Egypt and the International Committee of the Red Cross to join in the search, including in the areas of Gaza currently controlled by the Israeli military.

On the other hand, Israel launched strikes on the central Nuseirat refugee camp on Oct. 25, allegedly targeting Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants “who were planning to attack troops,” according to PBS. The militant group , which acts as an independent body and is not officially affiliated with Hamas, denied the accusation.

“Of course, we also thwart dangers as they are being formed, before they are carried out, as we did just yesterday in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu reportedly said during a cabinet meeting the next day.

On Oct. 28, reputable media outlets reported that Netanyahu ordered a series of “immediate and powerful strikes,” again accusing Hamas of failing to return all the bodies of the dead hostages; Israel claimed Hamas handed over body parts that were the partial remains of a hostage already recovered earlier in the war. In response to the strikes, Hamas reportedly said it would delay handing over the body of a hostage it uncovered.

In sum …

There was no primary evidence Hamas militants killed the Israeli soldiers with grenades other than the account of the Israeli military, which has a documented history of disseminating disinformation.

There also was no proof corroborating claims the soldiers died when an excavator drove over unexploded ordnance, though the U.N. has issued warnings about unexploded ordnance left over from Israeli shelling and there is documented evidence of Israelis using excavators to destroy homes and infrastructure in Gaza.

Israel has, as of this writing, launched three waves of airstrike attacks on Gaza since the U.S.-brokered deal went into effect in early October 2025, claiming that, in addition to Hamas militants allegedly killing the soldiers, Hamas failed to return all the remains of dead hostages, per the agreement. Hamas repeatedly said the full recovery of the bodies was proving difficult given the amount of rubble in Gaza, and responded to the Oct. 28 airstrikes by reportedly saying it would delay handing over the body of a hostage it uncovered.

Two years into the Israeli war in Gaza, world leaders recently gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to deliberate on a long-awaited peace plan to end the conflict.

As part of this plan, both Israel and Hamas agreed to another ceasefire agreement — the latest in a series of truces that have repeatedly collapsed since the war began in late 2023.

The meeting, involving Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United States, marks the most concerted diplomatic effort yet to halt a conflict that has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and at least 1,200 Israelis, according to Israel. It’s also displaced nearly 400,000 Palestinians.

Yet even if the fighting does stop, fundamental questions persist: how, when and by whom will Gaza be rebuilt? The recovery and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip will undoubtedly be an immense and complex undertaking, but the history of past conflicts sheds light on the way forward.

The scale of destruction

A February report from the World Bank estimated that recovery and reconstruction needs in Gaza and the West Bank will cost US$53.2 billion. Around US$20 billion of this is required to restore essential services, rebuild infrastructure and revitalize the economy — an amount exceeding the annual GDP of Belarus and Slovenia.

The scale of devastation is staggering. An estimated 84 per cent of the Gaza Strip and up to 92 per cent of Gaza City has been destroyed, with satellite data showing 292,904 homes destroyed or damaged. More than 60 million tonnes of debris — equivalent to 24,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — is awaiting removal.

The conflict has devastated Gaza’s economic sectors. Up to 96 per cent of agricultural assets and 82 per cent of businesses were damaged or destroyed, halting production and eliminating key income sources.

Years of Israel’s blockade on Gaza — which predates Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel — have further restricted the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza, severing access to international markets and vital raw materials. As a result, there has been near-total economic collapse and the private sector faces complete paralysis.

Beyond the physical and economic devastation, Gaza’s population faces severe psychological trauma. High rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, coupled with displacement and community breakdown, risk creating an intergenerational cycle of suffering through the psychological and epigenetic transmission of trauma.

Trump’s controversial peace plan

In an attempt to jump-start Gaza’s recovery, U.S. President Donald Trump introduced a 20-point peace plan envisioning interim governance by a committee of Palestinian technocrats under a “Board of Peace.” Authority would later be transferred to the Palestinian Authority following institutional reforms.

Read more: The Gaza ceasefire deal could be a ‘strangle contract’, with Israel holding all the cards

The plan outlines an economic development program to be designed by experts who “helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.” It also includes the creation of a “special economic zone” and temporary security provided by International Stabilization Forces made up of U.S., Arab and international partners.

Under the proposal, Hamas, which has governed Gaza for nearly two decades, would be expected to disarm, accept amnesty and transfer control to international forces. Yet even if Hamas disarms, experts estimate up to 100,000 members could remain in Gaza’s political landscape and reconstitute under new forms to maintain influence.

While the peace plan outlines a framework for recovery, past post-conflict settings shows that externally designed plans rarely succeed without active local engagement.

Read more: Hamas is battling powerful clans for control in Gaza – who are these groups and what threat do they pose?

Learning from past failures

As an expert in disaster and emergency management, I am conducting an ongoing systematic literature review (not yet published) analyzing recovery processes across post-war settings in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Experiences from Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that it’s naive to assume economic, administrative and security frameworks can succeed without genuinely engaging the local population.

This research shows that externally driven recovery plans often fail, and underscores the importance of adapting lessons from places where recovery has been effective.

My developing review suggests several critical factors for sustainable recovery:

Developing local capacities

Building strong and transparent institutions

Implementing gradual and sequenced reforms

Ensuring there is a deliberate transition from external to local leadership

Conversely, over-relying on external powers, neglecting capacity-building and failing to address social exclusion and power imbalances can undermine long-term outcomes.

Rebuilding hope through local participation

A common theme across nearly all the studies I looked at is the importance of restoring household livelihoods. This can be done by revitalizing economic production, supporting small businesses and implementing reforms that empower communities and restore hope.

After financing more than US$6.2 billion across 157 post-conflict operations in 18 countries, the World Bank concluded in 1997 that “without economic hope, we will not have peace.” This underscores the central role of economic recovery and livelihood restoration in post-war reconstruction.

An analysis of 36 post-civil war peace episodes (1990–2014) highlights the need for co-ordinated international efforts focused on administrative restructuring, judicial reform and local government elections.

Successfully integrating diverse political voices in post-war governance promotes transparency, accountability and local ownership, while helping to restore hope among populations affected by war.

In contrast, top-down reforms implemented without local engagement, as seen in Cambodia and Pakistan, can deepen divisions and undermine peace and development.

Toward a people-centred reconstruction

Although each post-war context is unique and requires its own approach, research consistently shows that actively including survivors in recovery efforts is essential.

Gaza’s reconstruction will only succeed if its people regain hope and play a central role in shaping a safe, peaceful and prosperous future for themselves and their communities.

Any international coalition or political initiatives aimed at rebuilding Gaza must recognize that survivors are not passive victims. They are central agents of their own recovery, whose voices must guide the reconstruction process.

Once immediate humanitarian needs are met through international support, all subsequent decisions about Gaza’s long-term development must be made through inclusive, democratic processes.

Fair and transparent elections must follow the urgent restoration of security, food, clean water, health care and education. Only through such an inclusive and locally grounded process can Gaza move toward genuine recovery, lasting peace and sustainable development.

Mahmood Fayazi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Israeli military said the Red Cross headed to southern Gaza where it received two hostage bodies handed over as part of a ceasefire deal.

“According to information provided by the Red Cross, two coffins of deceased hostages have been transferred into their custody and are on their way to IDF and ISA forces in the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement.

Israel says Rafah crossing to remain closed until further notice

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Gaza’s Rafah crossing will remain closed until further notice, shortly after the Palestinian Embassy in Egypt said it would reopen on Monday.

“The crossing’s opening will be considered based on the manner in which Hamas fulfils its part in returning the deceased hostages and implementing the agreed-upon framework,” Mr Netanyahu’s office said.

The Rafah crossing is the only one not controlled by Israel before the war. It has been closed since May 2024, when Israel took control of the Gaza side.

A fully reopened crossing would make it easier for Gazans to seek medical treatment, travel internationally or visit family in Egypt, which is home to tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Israel returns 15 Palestinian bodies to Gaza – ministry

Israel has returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza today, bringing the total number handed over to 135, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.

Under a ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.

It comes after the body of a deceased Israeli hostage, that Hamas returned overnight, was identified as 75-year-old Eliyahu Margalit.

The Israeli military “informed the family of the abductee Eliyahu Margalit … that (the body of) their loved one has been returned to Israel and his identification has been completed”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

It added that “we will not compromise… and will spare no effort until we return all of the fallen abductees, down to the last one”.

The remains of the hostage who died in captivity were transferred to Israeli security forces in Gaza via the Red Cross, and returned to Israel for identification at a medical analysis centre, the prime minister’s office said last night.

The Israeli military said the remains had been returned to Mr Margalit’s family.

Protesters standing with portraits of Israeli hostages including Eliyahu Margalit (left) in October 2024

Mr Margalit was killed at Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, according to a military statement.

“Eliyahu, 75 years old at the time of his death … leaves behind a wife, three children, and grandchildren. His daughter, Nili Margalit, was also abducted and returned (under) the hostage release agreement in November 2023,” the statement said.

“Hamas is required to fulfil its part of the agreement and make the necessary efforts to return all the hostages to their families,” it added.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement last night that the militant group “continues to uphold its commitment to the ceasefire agreement … and it will continue working to complete the full prisoner exchange process”.

Under the ceasefire agreement, the Palestinian militant group has returned all 20 surviving hostages and the remains of 10 out of 28 known deceased ones.

Under the terms of the agreement Hamas was to hand over all of the hostages, dead and alive, before Monday morning.

UN aid chief foresees ‘massive job’ ahead on tour of ruined Gaza

The United Nations’ aid chief took stock of the monumental task of restoring dignity and hygiene to Palestinians clinging to life in Gaza’s ruins, as Israel and Hamas exchanged more bodies.

A convoy of white UN jeeps carried relief coordinator Tom Fletcher and his team through the twisted rubble of shattered homes to see a wastewater treatment plant in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City.

“I drove through here seven to eight months ago when most of these buildings were still standing and, to see the devastation – this is a vast part of the city, just a wasteland – and it’s absolutely devastating to see,” he told AFP.

The densely populated cities of Gaza, home to more than two million Palestinians, have largely been reduced to ruins by two years of bombardment and intense fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army.

Surveying the damaged pumping equipment and a grim lake of sewage at the Sheikh Radwan wastewater plant, Mr Fletcher said the task ahead for the UN and aid agencies was a “massive, massive job”.

The British diplomat said he had met residents returning to destroyed homes trying to dig latrines in the ruins.

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“They’re telling me most of all they want dignity,” he said.

“We’ve got to get the power back on so we can start to get the sanitation system back in place.

“We have a massive 60-day plan now to surge in food, get a million meals out there a day, start to rebuild the health sector, bring in tents for the winter, get hundreds of thousands of kids back into school.”

According to figures supplied to mediators by the Israeli military’s civil affairs agency and released by the UN humanitarian office, on Thursday some 950 trucks carrying aid and commercial supplies crossed into Gaza from Israel.

Relief agencies have called for the Rafah border crossing from Egypt to be reopened to speed the flow of food, fuel and medicines, and Turkey has a team of rescue specialists waiting at the border to help find bodies in the rubble.

Some violent incidents have taken place despite the ceasefire.

Gaza civil defence says nine killed when Israeli forces fired at bus

Gaza’s civil defence agency said that Israeli forces killed nine members of a single Palestinian family when they fired on a bus yesterday, after the military confirmed it had targeted a vehicle that crossed the so-called “yellow line”.

“Civil defence crews were able to recover nine bodies following the Israeli occupation’s targeting of a bus carrying displaced persons east of the Zeitun neighbourhood yesterday,” Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the agency, which operates under Hamas authority, said.

Mr Bassal said the victims were members of the Abu Shabaan family and were killed while “trying to check on their home” in the Zeitun neighbourhood.

The Israeli military said a vehicle had been identified crossing the yellow line, the boundary behind which Israeli troops are stationed under the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

“The troops fired warning shots toward the suspicious vehicle, but the vehicle continued to approach the troops in a way that caused an imminent threat to them,” the military said in a statement.

“The troops opened fire to remove the threat, in accordance with the agreement.”

The ceasefire between Israeli forces and Hamas is now in its second week, but several incidents have been reported since it began, with the military saying its troops fired at individuals who approached or crossed the yellow line.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza in search of their homes since the ceasefire began, often struggling to find them amid the vast devastation left by more than two years of war.

Several Gazans who spoke to AFP said they were unable to locate their houses – or even familiar landmarks – in neighbourhoods now buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings and debris.

Israel’s Netanyahu says he will run for PM in next year’s election

Mr Netanyahu said he would run for office in the November 2026 elections and expected to win.

Appearing on a programme on the right-wing Channel 14, Mr Netanyahu was asked whether he intended to seek another term. “Yes,” he replied.

When pressed on whether he expected to win, the veteran leader responded: “Yes.”

Leader of Likud, Israel’s main right-wing party, Mr Netanyahu holds the record for the longest time served as Israel’s prime minister – more than 18 years in total, with interruptions, since 1996.

In the last elections, his Likud party won 32 seats in the Knesset, its ultra-Orthodox allies 18, and the Religious Zionism alliance 14, a record showing for the far-right.

His current term began with a controversial judicial overhaul plan that sparked months of mass protests, with tens of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets almost daily.

Since the start of the war triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented 7 October 2023 attack from Gaza, Mr Netanyahu has also faced mounting criticism from families of hostages over his handling of the war.

Additional reporting by PA

To find the place where he used to live, Noor Abed needed GPS.

As he pedaled north on his bicycle along the coastal highway from the town in central Gaza where he had taken refuge, not even the ruins of familiar buildings could guide him. What was once his neighborhood in Gaza City is now a row of sand dunes.

“There are no conditions for life here,” Abed, 35, told CNN. “No water, no electricity, no schools, and almost no phone coverage.”

The former software engineer is living in a tent he set up in the courtyard of Al-Azhar University, whose ruined campus has become a refugee center. Not all his family returned with him, worried that the nascent ceasefire may not hold.

“We are waiting to be sure the war has truly ended before bringing everyone back,” he said. The men in his family are preparing a place to live for others, as bulldozers begin clearing some of the roads. “Life is beginning to return,” he said. “Somewhat.”

Adding to the overall uncertainty in Gaza are complex questions about what security might look like in the future, as a mixture of what’s left of Hamas and rival clans, gangs and militias vie for power. For many Palestinians in Gaza, however, their most immediate needs – food, shelter, water – remain the most pressing.

Just over a week after US President Donald Trump strong-armed Israel and Hamas into an agreement that halted two years of devastating war, Palestinians in Gaza are beginning to put the pieces of their lives back together. But – even if the ceasefire holds – the scale of the task is Herculean. Almost every building is damaged or destroyed beyond repair. Nearly 68,000 people are dead, according to local health officials. Thousands are missing, their bodies presumed to be under the rubble. Gaza’s children, who number more than half of its estimated prewar population of 2.2 million, have gone without schooling for two years. Food is still hard to come by, and while the level of aid has increased since the ceasefire, there is not yet an established framework for its orderly distribution. And, as shown by the grim pictures of public executions this week, further breakdown in law and order hangs over everything.

Noor Abed walks through the ruins of his home in Gaza City this week. Noor Abed

To paint this picture of life in Gaza in the days after the ceasefire brokered by the Trump administration and Arab mediators, CNN spoke to residents in the enclave, consulted Palestinian and Israeli officials and analyzed social media footage. A review of reports by the United Nations and other agencies helped provide context around the scale of the destruction and the efforts and costs required to rebuild. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to prevent CNN and other international media organizations from reporting independently in Gaza, and we rely on freelance journalists based there.

On October 7, 2023, militants led by Hamas stormed into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping about another 250 in a coordinated attack that blindsided the country. Israel’s ferocious response followed. Israel’s offensives displaced most of Gaza’s population, forcing more than two million people to run for safety to the shifting patches of land the Israeli military described as humanitarian zones.

Amid the destruction of war and the uncertainty of a ceasefire barely a week old, Palestinians in Gaza now face a stark reality.

Two years of Israeli bombardment has rendered much of the territory unrecognizable. Gaza is about twice the size of Washington, DC and three times more populated. Now, more than 80% of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed, a figure with no modern comparison.

In the first five months of the war, Israel dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, which, the UN noted in a 2024 report, is equivalent to two nuclear bombs. And in the last year, Israel escalated its multifront aerial and ground attacks.

What remains is devastation at an almost unimaginable scale.

Gaza’s infrastructure is in a state of collapse, according to a UN assessment. Its water and sanitation systems have stopped functioning, and sewage has become backed up into the streets. Its arable land was bulldozed, making it impossible to farm. Some areas are at risk from toxic pollution. And while the ceasefire has allowed Palestinians in Gaza to breathe the sigh of relief they held for so long, that joy is tempered with the knowledge of the scale of the task ahead.

Palestinian children fill bottles with water from tanks brought in by trucks in Gaza City on Thursday. Khames Alrefi/Anadolu/Getty Images

Palestinians in Gaza City begin rebuilding their demolished home using stones and materials salvaged from the rubble Thursday. Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu/Getty Images

Mohammad Abu Samra is trying to repair what’s left of his home in Gaza City. Destroyed walls barely hold up part of the roof. The 35-year old has been trying to find some water to clean a small spot in his house because “even that is better than staying in a tent.”

But he has told his neighbors not to return yet.

“Yes, there is safety in Gaza now,” he told CNN. “It is calm and secure. But the simplest things you can imagine for normal human life do not exist, no water, no sewage system, no markets, nothing that gives a sense of life.”

At least 67,938 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including approximately 20,000 children.

Those are only the deceased who could be found and identified – at least 10,000 people are buried in the ruins, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense, whose teams are sifting through millions of tons of rubble and thousands of unexploded Israeli munitions among it. Gaza lacks the machinery and equipment for such a large-scale recovery effort, making the task even more difficult.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that 55 million tons of debris – the equivalent of 13 pyramids of Giza – need to be removed in the first phase of Gaza’s reconstruction.

“If you build a 12-meter wall around Central Park and you fill that, that’s the amount of rubble that needs to be cleared,” Jaco Cilliers from the UNDP told NPR from central Gaza. “There are also unexploded ordinances, or bombs, with that rubble. So that has to be cleared first.”

The first phase of the ceasefire agreement is nearing its completion. Hamas has returned the remaining 20 living hostages, with ongoing efforts to return the bodies of all 28 deceased hostages. Despite Israel accusing Hamas of slow-walking the return of bodies, a senior US administration official said the group had not violated the terms of the ceasefire. Meanwhile, Israel has released 250 Palestinian prisoners convicted of serious crimes, 1,700 detainees held without charge since the start of the war, and has so far returned the remains of more than 100 Palestinians.

People gather to greet freed Palestinian prisoners arriving outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Monday. Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

But phase two is far less clear. The 20-point proposal, put forward by Trump and receiving international backing, calls for Hamas to disarm and give up governance of Gaza to a Palestinian committee supervised by an international board. Israel is supposed to withdraw from most of the enclave, but only after an international security force takes over.

So far, that force has yet to take shape. A senior US administration official said this week that the force was “starting to be constructed.” Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan are among the countries ready to participate, the official said.

Mediators are working on implementing the next steps of the agreement,but the official said it will require weeks of “patience.” Despite a deep mistrust between Israel and Hamas, the official noted “there does not seem to be any intent for the agreement not to be kept.”

As diplomatic delegations continued talks this week in Sharm el-Sheikh – the Egyptian resort town that has hosted historic peace deals – a security vacuum has opened. Taking advantage of that void, Hamas began reasserting itself in force on the streets of Gaza.

In one video widely shared on social media and confirmed by CNN, Hamas gunmen executed eight blindfolded men on the streets of Gaza City.

The so-called Palestinian Resistance Factions, of which Hamas is a part, praised the killings, calling them a “security campaign.”

After two years of war and Israel’s vow to destroy the militant organization that carried out the October 7 terror attack, the message was clear: Hamas is quickly working to take control where Israel has withdrawn.

“As soon as there’s a ceasefire, (Hamas) would emerge out of deep hibernation and they would try to go fast as possible with this quick round of executions, clashes, engaging with what they consider outlaws, with collaborators, with thieves, with murderers,” Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN.

Hamas wanted to be seen carrying out executions in order to “create cautionary tales in the ugliest way possible so that other people would be scared into line,” he said.

And Trump appeared to give it a measure of backing.

On Monday, as he was en route to Israel to take his victory lap for brokering the deal, the US president said Hamas wants “to stop the problems” and that he’d given the group “approval for a period of time” to rearm themselves. But the next day he also warned that Hamas must disarm or “we will disarm them.”

US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One en route to Washington, DC, after participating in a world leaders’ summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

For the last two years, Israel had refused to come up with a plan for post-war governance of Gaza. Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant presciently warned in May 2024 that without a plan, there were only two options: “Hamas rule in Gaza or Israeli military rule in Gaza.”. Both choices were unacceptable, he said.

And yet without a concrete framework to push forward the next 16 points of Trump’s 20-point plan, both unfolded concurrently, the Israeli military controls just over half of Gaza, and Hamas is quickly consolidating control of swaths of the rest.

“Now that there’s a ceasefire, they (Hamas) feel an urge to do this as fast as possible to try to make it easier for them to do two things: Number one is to disarm large families and try to create the basic state function. The other goal is to pursue wanted individuals – outlaws, collaborators, fugitives, people responsible for looting aid,” Shehada said.

Even so, Shehada said Hamas is still willing to cede governance of Gaza “because Arab countries have made it clear that if Hamas stays in government a single day more, there wouldn’t be any reconstruction or an end to the war.”

The leverage from the Arab states is a crucial element in keeping the deal from coming apart.

During the war, Hamas had faced several unprecedented protests against its rule which grew into armed resistance in parts of the enclave. But with a ceasefire in place, Hamas quickly moved to quash defiance, aiming to cement the authority denied to them in the nascent agreement.

Palestinians attend a protest against war and Hamas in a rare show of public anger against the militant group that rules the territory in Beit Lahiya, Gaza, on March 26. Jehad Alshrafi/AP

To challenge and weaken Hamas, Israel armed local militias in Gaza, like Yasser Abu Shabab’s in Rafah. Based behind Israeli lines, these militias are waging turf wars, Shehada says, where they “descend on the other half of Gaza, carry out attacks, then go and run back to those protected areas.”

Israel collapsed the Hamas government without creating an alternative, which Shehada says created “a huge vacuum that leads to societal collapse – the erosion of law and order, the full collapse of civic order, of any basic societal cohesion.”

According to Trump’s ceasefire plan, a Palestinian technocratic administrative body will run the enclave, supervised by an international body called the “Board of Peace.” Trump will lead the board, along with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who played a significant role in supporting the US invasion of Iraq that led to sectarian violence and the rise of ISIS.

A force of 200 US personnel will deploy in support of a temporary international force to stabilize the security situation. . But it’s not clear what countries will contribute to the force or how long it will be deployed. Its exact structure and details remain unclear. The US has said its own troops will not enter Gaza.

At the peace summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Trump promised there would be “a lot of money coming into Gaza.” He boasted during the trip that the region’s richest nations would pour money into the territory to rebuild. That commitment has yet to materialize, and the entire effort may rely on whether Trump remains engaged and can keep the ceasefire intact.

A joint assessment by the UN, the World Bank and the European Union estimated the recovery would take some $70 billion. Approximately $20 billion would be required in the first three years just to restore basic functions in Gaza, where schools, factories, and hospitals require major work or are beyond repair.

Gaza needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, even as necessities like food remain a critical challenge. Its population is still heavily reliant on aid – and likely will be for the foreseeable future, since Israel has destroyed and occupied much of the territory’s once-rich farmland.

In August, a UN-backed initiative, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), declared famine in parts of Gaza City, a humanitarian catastrophe that cannot be remedied overnight. The IPCs declaration prompted global outrage, and Israel increased the levels of aid it permitted to enter the strip. Since the ceasefire went into effect, the flow of aid has increased substantially. But while the ceasefire agreement calls for Israel to allow in 600 trucks of aid a day, the UN warns it’s a drop in the ocean.

Trucks loaded with humanitarian aid on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing wait to cross into Gaza early on Wednesday. Stringer/AFP/.Getty Images

Restrictions on aid should not be a bargaining chip, said the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher this week, adding: “We need massive amounts of humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza.”

The prices of vegetables, oil, and flour have soared since the war began. In August, onions cost 400 times more than they did at the outset of the war. While food prices fluctuate across the enclave, overall, they are starting to decline – but affordability remains a serious concern for most. In the absence of cooking gas, nearly two-thirds of households have resorted to burning waste to cook meals, according to the UN. Gaza’s economy has been buried in the ruins.

With few jobs and little access to cash, Gaza’s population has no choice but to rely on aid. For many, the sheer act of obtaining food of the last two years.

Mona Khalil’s son was killed by a drone on his way to a falafel stand.

“I prayed to God for a son, and I did not have him for long before he was gone,” she told CNN. “He went out to buy falafel and never came back.”

“The war stopped, but if it returns, so be it,” she said. “My son is gone. What did I gain?”

This story has been updated. An earlier version misstated Yasser Abu Shabab’s location. It is Rafah.