Anas Juha wished he could convince himself that someone had survived under the rubble of his house in the Al-Fayoumi neighborhood of Gaza City after the Israeli airstrike on December 6th that brought it down on 117 members of his family. Only the bodies of 57 have been recovered, with the rest still missing under the debris, similar to thousands of others since the war began, according to a detailed report by the Israeli investigative site "Sicha Mekomit."

Anas survived only because he was at his father's neighboring house at the time of the strike. When he rushed back to check on his family after the explosion, he found nothing but a column of smoke and dust.

"The entire building was destroyed... All I could think about were the 140 people inside," Anas told the Hebrew site.

"Sicha Mekomit" is described among Israeli left-wing activists as an alternative media platform that seeks to expose the practices and racist policies of the occupation.

Anas began a frantic search for his family members, joined by two cousins who miraculously survived the explosion after being thrown out of the building and injured.

Ambulances did not arrive at the site until the first wounded were transported by private cars to the Baptist Hospital, as it was initially impossible to notify the civil defense of the airstrike due to the communications network being cut off. Anas's wife and their two children were not among those recovered, nor were his in-laws and their son.

Under the shock, Anas couldn't immediately remember the names of all his relatives, not even his wife and children, but he finally managed to list the names of his 60 missing relatives.

"Life Goes On"Despite seven and a half months passing, Anas clings to a thread of hope, not to save any of the missing, but to find them and arrange proper burial ceremonies for them.

However, the civil defense has exhausted its equipment, and its crews are overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction, and they have to deal with other airstrikes that may have left survivors, so "they don't have time for cases like ours," Anas adds. "The living are more important than the dead," in short.

Anas's family is just a sample of the thousands of Palestinians officially listed as missing since the war began, most of them, it seems, trapped, dead or alive, under the rubble.

The International Committee of the Red Cross reports that 8,700 people are officially registered as missing, with 75% of cases unresolved.

Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip's Ministry of Health talks about 10,000 missing people, a figure not included in the official death toll, which now approaches 40,000.

As most health facilities are out of service after being destroyed or their crews forced to evacuate, rescuing and identifying victims and then counting them could take years.

The civil defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, says, "What pains us the most is hearing someone's voice coming from under the rubble and not being able to do anything for them."

The civil defense can no longer recover all the bodies due to the extent of the bombing and the restrictions on bringing in rescue equipment, and its members themselves are targeted during their work, despite the protection they should have under humanitarian law.

10,000 Missing"Even if the war ends, we will need two to three years to recover all the bodies... In periods when the bombing has relatively quieted down and we were able to retrieve some, the bodies of the martyrs, especially children, were in advanced stages of decomposition," adds Basal, who warns of the spread of diseases and epidemics with the accumulation of thousands of bodies under the rubble as summer heat accelerates decomposition.

The UN says removing 40 million tons of rubble in Gaza could take 15 years.

According to "Save the Children," more than half of the 10,000 missing are children believed to be under the rubble, and thousands more may be buried in unmarked mass graves, arrested by occupation forces, or lost by their families amid the chaos.

The number of Palestinian children whose whereabouts are unknown is 21,000, including those who reached hospitals but couldn't be identified and are classified as "injured children with no surviving family."

Social media networks are flooded with messages asking about missing people, especially children, particularly after the forced displacement from Rafah in southern Gaza in early May.

Among them is Ahmed Yassin, a two-year-old who disappeared during the mass exodus from Return Square in the city center towards the Mawaasi area near the coast.

"Our belongings were on two trucks... I thought he was with his father, and his father thought he was with me, and we didn't realize he was missing until we unloaded our belongings," says his mother, Samah.

When his father, Rami, quickly returned to the departure point, he found no trace of him, and no one recognized the missing child.

"We search for him every day among the living and the dead... Knowing he is dead would be easier than the agony of waiting. We don't know if he is alive or dead... Whether dogs devoured him or the occupation arrested him or a soldier took him to Israel."

Gaza police do not participate directly in the search due to limited resources, and their departments are targets of airstrikes, but they offer help as they can, without coordination or assistance from international organizations, according to an unnamed source in the police speaking to the Israeli site.

Waiting in Refrigerators"We collect information from relatives and distribute messages on WhatsApp groups belonging to the department, including contact details, phone numbers, and addresses, with photos of the missing... When a decomposed body is found, photos of the clothes and other distinctive marks are taken... If the body is not decomposed and facial features can be identified, photos are taken and posted on social media... The body is then placed in the hospital refrigerator for three days, and if not identified, it is buried."

The source adds that hospitals, under the enormous number of martyrs brought to them, "only write a number on each body before burying it immediately in a designated place... If identified later, the number is replaced with a name, which is then removed from the missing list, and the family decides whether to relocate the body or leave it there."

According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, airstrikes have killed 14,000 children, half of whom remain unidentified.

Mass GravesA UN report in May spoke of children's bodies found in mass graves, some bearing signs of torture and summary execution. It also mentioned instances where individuals may have been buried alive.

According to "Save the Children," a child's likelihood of dying from injuries is seven times higher than that of an adult due to their fragile bodies, making them more susceptible to severe, disfiguring injuries.

However, their small size sometimes prevents them from being crushed under the rubble.

This was the case for Hamza Malaka, the sole survivor of an airstrike in the second week of the war, which killed his entire family, including elders and young children.

Nine months after the war, the number of martyrs trapped under the rubble of the house in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City remains unknown, but neighbors speak of a family of 26, some of whose bodies have yet to be recovered.

Mohammad, Hamza's uncle, living in California, asked a friend to take care of his nephew until he arranges his transfer to the United States.

"I don't know how many were in that house when it was bombed or how many left or were displaced to other areas in Gaza," Mohammad told the Israeli site.

A Grave for KenzaNajee Juha, Anas's cousin, only wants a dignified burial for his two-year-old daughter, Kenza, who was martyred in the airstrike that killed 117 family members.

Najee managed to find the bodies of his wife, son, mother, father, brother, and his brother's children and nieces, but there is still no trace of Kenza.

"Was her body torn apart? Did she burn in the explosion? Or did she survive only to suffocate under the rubble?" Najee has been tormented by this question for nine months and still has no answer.

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