Symbolic image112 bodies recovered from Gaza's Sabra district after two-week search
Gaza's civil defence says it has ended a two-week search in the Sabra district and recovered 112 bodies from destroyed houses. It reports 157 more people still missing at the same site.
What happened
- The civil defence announced the completed operation on Saturday, 1 August, in a residential sector south of Gaza City.
- Among the recovered dead are 40 children and seven people with disabilities, according to the statement.
- Teams searched by hand among concrete blocks and collapsed metal structures, a civil defence official said.
- The ICRC says it supported the teams and that recovering remains needs time, equipment and coordination between several actors.
- Israel's army struck Sabra repeatedly on Sunday, 12 July, killing four people, officials at Shifa hospital said.
The view from outside
Le Monde stresses that restrictions on media and limited access to Gaza make tolls impossible to verify independently. It places the Sabra recovery in a wider count: thousands have been reported missing since the Hamas attack on Israel of 7 October 2023, many presumed buried under rubble after Israeli bombardments.
What could happen next
- The civil defence has not said when or whether searching for the 157 missing at the site resumes.
- The scale of destruction and restricted access to many areas keep an exact toll out of reach.
- Israel's account of what it hit in July has not been independently verified.
Palestinian side: Gaza's civil defence frames the search for the missing and the extraction of remains as a humanitarian task carried out under extremely difficult conditions.
Israel: The army acknowledged attacking the area in July, saying it targeted "terrorist infrastructure" and later specifying a Hamas weapons production site, without further detail.