‘All I Want is to Bury My Family in Dignity’
GAZA – Abdel Rahman Khalla no longer holds any dreams of a life; there is no home waiting for him, no family to return to, and no future he can envision as he once did. After losing 39 members of his family under the rubble of their home in northern Gaza, all hopes and aspirations dwindled to a single wish: To find the bodies of his loved ones and bury them with dignity.
Amidst the heavy stones, the dust, and the agonizing wait, he now asks for nothing more than a simple human right: A grave to embrace those who have passed away, and an end befitting the story of a family wiped out by war.
He has decided to dig and undertake this task himself.
Amid the rubble of a five-story building, Khalla stands as the sole witness to one of the most horrific massacres in northern Gaza. He lost about 39 members of his family in a single attack on their home in the Jabalia al-Nazla area on 21 December, 2023.
Read also: Gaza: Civil Defense begins recovering bodies from rubble
Abdul Rahman, the sole survivor of his family, recounts the details of the tragedy, which continues till this day. He says that 39 people, including women and children, were inside the house at the time of the bombing. All were killed under the rubble and no one else emerged alive.
He adds that only 18 bodies were recovered, while the rest, 20 to 21 others, are strill trapped under the debris – over 30 months later because there was no heavy machinery to remove the rubble and debris. Today, Israel continues to block such machinery from entering Gaza.
Abdul Rahman confirmed to the Sanad News Agency they exhausted all avenues, appealing to the Red Cross, Civil Defense, and the Jabalia al-Nazla Municipality, as well as the Qatari and Egyptian committees, requesting such heavy equipment to help in recovering the bodies but all of their appeals went unanswered.
“After 30 months of suffering, we decided to dig with our bare hands,” Abdul Rahman explained, adding the members of his surviving family had only begun manually removing the rubble four days prior, using simple and worn-out tools such as shovels, picks, and light rakes, despite the dangerous situation and the sheer size of their building that collapsed.
But during these arduous efforts, they only managed to recover two bodies; one belonging to his uncle, and the other who remains unidentified. About 19 bodies remain buried under the rubble, awaiting recovery and a proper burial.
Abdel Rahman appeals to the Egyptian Committee and the Reconstruction Committee for urgent intervention, requesting they send bulldozers and trucks to remove the rubble and debris. He emphasizes his family is not asking for the impossible, but simply for their right to reach their loved ones and bury them with dignity.
The tragedy of the Khalla family is not just another statistic in the war’s record, but a human story that speaks of all the suffering of Gaza, where entire families still live amidst the ruins of their homes, searching for their martyrs and awaiting for a long-delayed mercy.
Despite the ceasefire agreement in Gaza that came into effect on October 10, 2025, the Israeli occupation authorities continue to evade their obligations by preventing the entry of hundreds of heavy vehicles needed to remove the thousands of tons of rubble scattered throughout the Strip.
According to data from the Government Media Office, the occupation destroyed 90% of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza during the two years of its offensive, leaving behind more than 70 million tons of rubble, in one of the region’s largest humanitarian disasters in the world.
The Civil Defense Authority indicated in previous statements that dozens of families in Gaza continue to send appeals for help in recovering their relatives months after their martyrdom, but the Authority is unable to respond due to the lack of necessary equipment.
This article was in the Arabic Sanad Lil Anba website and reproduced in crossfirearabia.com.
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