Cairo Since the beginning of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and despite the obstacles to keep communication channels open amid the devastation of its critical infrastructure, the Ministry of Health of the Strip has been able to update with a great regularity the death count, which does not stop growing. But local authorities are having serious difficulties in following up on another drama: that of missing people.
Sign up for the International newsletter What seems far away matters more than ever
Sign up for it
Although there has been no centralized effort to keep a record, the human rights organization Euro-Med estimates that as of mid-April there were more than 13,000 missing in Gaza. Most are believed to have died, but because they cannot be certified they are not included in the health ministry’s statistics, which are based mostly on reports they receive from hospitals and which so far put the official figure at around 35,000 dead, mostly creatures and women.
The vast majority of missing people remain buried lifeless under the rubble of buildings and houses that are being destroyed in the aggressive bombing campaign of the Israeli army. This Tuesday, the Gaza Civil Protection body declared that there are more than 10,000 missing in these circumstances, and they regretted that the search and rescue work is extremely difficult due to the lack of machinery and fuel.
“The difficulties are very great and we have problems at all levels,” said Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Protection of Gaza, by telephone. “The most important problem that threatens our work is that of equipment and fuel. We have no team, no means. Unfortunately, the occupying forces have completely destroyed it”, he notes.
The Gaza media office reported late last year that Israel had so far destroyed around 80% of the vehicles and equipment of the emergency services units, which were already limited after more than a decade of ferry blockade imposed jointly on the Strip by Tel-Aviv and Cairo. Basal explains that the entire Civil Protection body has only 800 workers for all kinds of emergencies.
Currently overwhelmed rescue teams and volunteer groups work mostly during the day because power cuts and fuel shortages prevent them from working when the sun goes down. And, since they have very basic means, most of the bodies they can recover they find in the remains of small buildings or directly on the street. Basal also points out that 68 Civil Protection workers have died in Israeli attacks and 200 are injured.
“People want us to be there when an attack occurs. And unfortunately, we can be there, but we don’t have the ability to take people out [atrapada]”. “Many people have died while we were talking”, adds Basal, who notes that the psychological impact for them is also very high.
37 million tons of debris
Adding to the difficulties of searching through the remains of buildings is the enormous amount of debris being left by Israel’s offensive. At the end of April a senior official of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), Pehr Lodhammar, stated that estimates point to around 37 million tons, and 200 kilograms of debris for every square meter struck in the Strip A study of material destruction in Gaza published in April by the World Bank, the European Union and the UN calculated that 62% of homes are now damaged or destroyed.
At least hundreds more of the missing are buried in the many mass graves throughout Gaza. Euro-Med has been able to document more than 130, which contain between a few dozen and several hundred bodies and have been excavated in places such as wedding halls, mosques, schools, hospital courtyards and stadiums. Others lie directly dead on the street, in agricultural land and in areas where the Israeli army has passed.
Among those still alive, many have been detained by Israeli troops in Gaza and transferred to detention facilities outside the Strip. The country’s authorities have not released information about these secret detentions, but the Israeli human rights group HaMoked has obtained reports on at least hundreds of cases.
One of the organizations mobilized to help locate missing persons is the Red Cross, which has a direct telephone line to deal with these cases. Between the start of the assault on Gaza and the end of March, they had received more than 7,000 applications and closed 1,400 after families were reunited or contacted.
“In open war situations like those in Gaza there are many challenges,” says Hisham Mhanna, from the Red Cross. “Access to several areas is not possible, people may be injured or unconscious in a hospital or a medical center, and the conditions are not given to carry out an active search”, he points out. In addition, “people are constantly on the move, which makes contact difficult”, and “telecommunications is a particularly big obstacle: people may not have coverage, may have had to change their SIM card or number, may have lost the phone, that they couldn’t charge it…”, he adds.
2024-05-03 19:33:11
#Thousands #missing #rubble #Gaza
