The National Committee for Missing Persons in Gaza has called for the immediate intervention of the international community and the entry of specialized teams in the recovery of bodies because, beyond the 67,000 deaths that the Gaza Strip has left, it is estimated that there are about 10,000 more bodies to be recovered, under the rubble. And it is a conservative figure, they warn.
Alaa al-Din al-Aklouk, his spokesperson, gave a press conference in Gaza City on Thursday in which he stated that the Palestinian strip has become “the largest mass grave in the world.” Thousands of people remain buried under their houses, which have been turned into mass graves due to the attacks of the Israeli Army, without their bodies having been recovered or their final dignity preserved, further multiplying the .
“We express our deep shock and strong condemnation for the lack of an effective role on the part of international organizations and humanitarian agencies, particularly those dealing with missing persons, in the midst of the worsening humanitarian catastrophe,” denounced the spokesperson, who recalled that 90% of the buildings in Gaza are today destroyed or damaged at least by the attacks.
The committee has followed “with deep pain” what it described as the double standard in the international community’s treatment of the bodies of Palestinian victims, compared to the significant attention paid to the recovery of the bodies of Israeli captives. which is being returned in dribs and drabs in part, says the Islamist group, due to the difficulty of removing rubble. “It reflects a serious injustice and a clear bias against the victims of Gaza,” indicates the NGO.
Al-Aklouk asked the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), to “activate all political, legal and logistical channels to promote the solution to the problem of the missing and provide care to their families.” However, the Rais does not rule the Strip, but only partially in the West Bank, and the second real phase of the ceasefire signed between Hamas and Israel has not yet been entered, which includes the deployment of an international peacekeeping force and the establishment of an administration of technocrats to command the territory in the immediate future.
The organization urges the international community to pressure Israel’s prime minister, allow in specialized equipment, heavy machinery and technologies to locate bodies under the rubble and conduct DNA testing to identify the victims, rather than leaving them among the ranks of the “unidentified missing.” He also asked that the .
Israeli occupation authorities continue to prevent the entry of heavy equipment and machinery necessary for the removal of debris and the recovery of bodies. It is one more step that they refuse, when emergency humanitarian aid (food, water, fuel, medicine) arrives in dribs and drabs, 300 trucks a day in the best of cases (when they were double before the start of the war, when the strip had already been fenced since 2007).
“Many of the authorized trucks transport non-essential and non-perishable dry goods. Instant noodles, biscuits, chocolates and sweets are abundant in stores. But essential products remain in short supply, including nutritious foods such as vegetables, proteins and dairy products. For example, eggs are nowhere to be seen,” from the field.
The UN says Israel has rejected 107 requests for humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire agreement with Hamas came into force last month and the World Health Organization (WHO) says at least 16,500 people in war-torn Gaza need urgent medical attention. He has called on the international community to welcome them as soon as possible.
Also yesterday, Ismail al-Thawabta, director general of the Government Media Office, described the Israeli ban on such equipment as a violation of the humanitarian protocol of the ceasefire agreement, which stipulates allowing the entry of hundreds of machines. specialized for the movement of stones and rubble.
The situation contrasts with the burial, yesterday, of the Israeli hostage Oz Daniel, a sergeant whose body Hamas returned last Sunday within the framework of the ceasefire with Israel. Daniel, 19, was killed in combat on October 7, 2023 while fighting Islamist militants. His body was taken to Palestinian soil, where it was held for more than two years. Israel’s National Center for Forensic Medicine confirmed Monday that Oz Daniel was among the hostages Hamas returned to Israel on Sunday, along with Asaf Hamami and Omer Neutra.
Late Thursday night, the Islamist organization returned the remains of another kidnapped person, which Israel’s Abu Kabir National Institute of Forensic Medicine identified as belonging to Tanzanian student Joshua Loitu Mollel. Hamas and Gaza militias hold the bodies of six other abductees, all of them men, including five Israeli citizens and a Thai farmer kidnapped near Kibbutz Beeri.
Since the ceasefire came into force, the Palestinian group has expressed difficulties in locating the bodies of the hostages who remain in Gaza due to the tons of rubble and not always having access to heavy machinery. Israel, however, has accused the Islamists of purposely delaying the delivery of these bodies to avoid addressing their disarmament, an issue that they must discuss with the mediators when negotiations for the second phase of the agreement resume.
According to Israeli media, its Government allowed some teams to enter more than a week ago to search for the bodies of its captives, but they are not used to also search for those 10,000 missing Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that around 513 bodies of Palestinians who were killed on the streets and highways since October 11 have been recovered.
“Coming soon”
Furthermore, last night, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated that the situation in Gaza “is working very well” and assured that “Hamas is a very small part of the conflict, very, very small.” During a round of questions at a dinner at the White House with the leaders of the Central Asian countries, Trump stated that “If they don’t do what they said, if they don’t behave, then they will have a big problem, really big, like they’ve never had before,” when answering about Hamas and the agreements reached.
Trump explained that the truce in Gaza remains in place and highlighted that the agreements so far are being “respected,” noting that the situation is evolving positively. He also indicated that several countries have offered to participate in the international stabilization force in Gaza, which will operate under a cooperation framework coordinated with the United Nations. So that force will be present in Gaza “very soon.”
At the same dinner, the US Secretary of State, highlighted Trump’s role in international coordination and noted that “the commitment of the countries involved depends largely on the ability of American leadership.”
During the same dinner, Trump also announced that the Kazakh president, Kassym-Jomart Toyayev, had decided, a decision that he communicated by telephone to the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu.
The Abraham Accords were ratified in the White House on September 15, 2020, during Trump’s first term (2017-2021), whose Government then boasted of having broken the Arab consensus of not establishing relations with Israel without a peace agreement and a Palestinian state.
