SAFA - In Gaza City's Al-Sabra neighborhood, 40-year-old Palestinian ex-detainee Mos'ab Madoukh waits beside the rubble of what was once his family home. 

An Israeli airstrike during the war reduced the building to ruins, leaving several of his relatives buried beneath the debris. Since then, he has endured months of uncertainty, unable to recover their bodies or bring closure to his family's loss.

Speaking to Felesteen newspaper, Madoukh said his home, located near Abdullah Azzam Mosque in Al-Sabra neighborhood, was struck on January 29, 2024. At the time, 19 members of his family were inside, including his mother, Suheira; his brothers, Sohaib and Ezzeddin; Sohaib’s wife; and their two children.

His wife, Samia, and their children, Bashir, Menatullah, Suheir, Mohammad, and Hamza, as well as his sister Duha, her husband Mahmoud Al-Ghurra, and their six children were also killed.

“The house was hit in a heavy Israeli bombardment about a month and a half before I was arrested,” he said. “The attack came without warning amid airstrikes and artillery shelling. At the time, I had no idea of the scale of the tragedy that had struck my family.”

“After the house was bombed, several bodies were recovered, but eight remain beneath the rubble to this day,” he continued. “We still do not know exactly who remains there, especially after some bodies were recovered over time.”

Madoukh said the search and recovery efforts have been extremely difficult because of the lack of heavy machinery and essential equipment. Family members attempted to remove the rubble themselves and recover whoever they could despite the extensive destruction.

“I live with unimaginable psychological pain because I stay near my destroyed home,” he said. “I tried to seal the broken windows and damaged parts of the house so I could remain there. But I cannot bring myself to leave this place because my children and other family members are still buried beneath the rubble.”

Living with the tragedy

Madoukh said living near the house forces him to relive the tragedy every day. “There is no joy in this place,” he said.

“Whenever I approach the house, I feel the pain all over again. My children and my brother’s children, who live nearby, are terrified knowing the bodies remain beneath the rubble. Sometimes I search for the remains of my family members, and that only deepens my suffering.”

He said the most painful moment of his life was the attack on his home. He had left only a short time before it was bombed. Soon afterward, he learned that his family had been targeted before beginning another chapter of suffering during his detention in Israeli prisons.

Fighting back tears, he said, “The hardest days of my life were during my detention. I spent nearly a year and eight months in Israeli prisons, unaware of what had happened to my family because communication was nearly impossible. When I was released on October 13, 2025, I returned only to face another tragedy, standing amid the ruins of my home, waiting for the bodies of my loved ones.”

Madoukh said the memory of that day has never left him. With his relatives’ bodies still buried beneath the rubble, he described the pain as an open wound that refuses to heal. 

He called on international and humanitarian organizations, Civil Defense teams, and all agencies operating in the Gaza Strip to urgently secure the heavy equipment needed to recover the bodies and end the suffering of families still waiting for their loved ones.

Despite a severe lack of heavy machinery, Gaza's Civil Defense teams are still searching for and recovering bodies from under the debris of destroyed homes.

Civil Defense estimates that since the beginning of the genocide, about 8,500 bodies have been buried beneath the debris. Recovery efforts continue with limited manual equipment alongside large-scale excavation projects at several sites coordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross.