Gaza’s Civil Defense announced on Tuesday that the bodies and remains of 47 people had been recovered from beneath the rubble of the Al-Hassaina family home in the Sabra area, south of Gaza City.

Colonel Mohammed Abu Dan, the executive supervisor of the Civil Defense operations to recover the bodies of the deceased, said rescue teams had managed to retrieve the remains of 47 people from a single home belonging to the Al-Hassaina family.

Abu Dan said rescue teams are continuing their search for 36 more bodies believed to still be trapped under the debris of the house.

He explained that the recovery efforts are facing major field challenges, noting that teams will continue searching beneath neighboring homes on Wednesday due to the possibility that remains were displaced there by the intensity of the bombing that targeted the area.

The operations are part of the second phase of a program to recover bodies launched by Gaza’s General Directorate of Civil Defense on Sunday. The program aims to retrieve around 8,500 bodies and remains still buried under the rubble of destroyed homes across the Gaza Strip.

The remains being recovered belong to victims of the Sabra neighborhood massacre that took place on November 23, 2023, when Israeli airstrikes targeted a residential area containing homes belonging to the Al-Hassaina and Abu Sharia families.

The strikes killed more than 93 people, including more than 55 members of the Al-Hassaina family, most of them women and children.

The victims’ remains remained buried under tons of rubble for more than two and a half years, as access was prevented due to the widespread destruction and the lack of heavy equipment needed for debris removal operations.

Gaza’s Civil Defense faces major challenges during recovery operations, most notably a severe shortage of equipment and heavy machinery. In Gaza City, only one excavator is currently available, while search operations are further complicated by remains being displaced beneath nearby buildings due to the force of explosions, as well as the decomposition of bodies over time.

Civil Defense teams have also suffered from a large number of vehicles being taken out of service due to damage and limited resources. This has slowed recovery operations and increased the suffering of thousands of families who continue waiting to locate and bury the remains of their loved ones.