Extract from ABC News
Lina Al-Jaura climbs is still reeling from the loss of her family in an Israeli strike on Gaza. (ABC News)
As Lina Al-Jaura climbs over the broken concrete and twisted metal of her flattened home in Gaza, she recalls the night she lost 28 members of her family in a single strike.
She had been sick and was away from her family's house to prevent spreading her illness, when the bombs fell in February, 2024.
"Don't go home," her uncle warned her on the phone. "Your family is gone and the house isn't there."
The 23-year-old is now the sole survivor of her family.
"Receiving this news was very painful. I didn't believe it. I suffered from a nervous breakdown at the time," Lina told the ABC.
More than two years on, she is still waiting to bury her relatives, who are trapped under the debris.
The rubble and debris are all that remain of Lina Al-Jaura's family home after an Israeli strike. (ABC News)
"I often go inside the rubble, so I can reach the closest point that I spent with my mother. I am very much attached to my Mum, more than you can imagine," she said.
Thousands of bodies are believed to be trapped beneath Gaza's ruins.
According to one report in the Israeli newspapers Haaretz, citing a source from Gaza Civil Defence, that number could be as high as 8,000.
Lina said she has pleaded for help to recover the bodies of her family, including the babies and children of her siblings, so she can lay them to rest but she was told there is no equipment available in Gaza to clear the rubble.
"I should be able to bury my family so that instead of visiting a house [where I] mourn in pain, I can visit their grave and at least I know they are in a good place," she said.
"Each time I look at the house I have regret, a pain. Why is [it] after two years and two months I have not succeeded in taking them out of the rubble?"
The scale of Gaza's destruction
An assessment by the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union estimates there are 68 million metric tonnes of debris in Gaza waiting to be cleared – roughly equivalent to 186 Empire State buildings.
The report published in April said the total removal would cost more than $US1.7 billion.
Twenty-eight members of Lina's family were killed in a single strike in Gaza. (ABC News)
It has been estimated it would take seven years to clear, according to the United Nations, who said in February that only 0.5 per cent of rubble had been removed from the strip.
"We need to have more capacity to do rubble removal and rubble recycling," said Alexander De Croo, the head of the UN Development Programme.
"Ninety per cent of the people of Gaza today live in the middle of that rubble, which is extremely dangerous."
Schools, hospitals and private homes have all been impacted, with the UN Development Program estimating over 80 per cent of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. Many families have been left without reliable access to clean water, electricity, food or healthcare.
Rescue teams say they have also been inundated with calls from families who know exactly where their dead loved ones are buried and require help to pull them from the rubble.
But recovery efforts in Gaza have stalled, despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas coming into effect six months ago.
Lack of heavy machinery preventing recovery efforts
In some of the hardest hit areas in Gaza City, recovery operations have stopped altogether.
"With a lack of heavy machinery we are unable to retrieve bodies because the equipment is prevented from entering [the strip] by Israel," Director of Civil Defense in Gaza Brigadier General Raed Al-Dahshan told the ABC.
The ABC has contacted Israel's government for comment.
Hamdi Malaka is another Gazan who knows exactly where people are buried under rubble, but cannot get to them.
Hamdi Malaka wants to give his relatives the funerals they deserve but cannot get to them. (ABC News)
He said 70 people were killed in his block in the neighbourhood of Zeitun in an air strike in November, including his family.
"I have a son who had five children. He and his wife are gone," the 76-year-old said.
"It was a Thursday in November and [our house] was hit by two missiles, we got no early warning — they annihilated a whole block here, we lost 70 people and about 30 were wounded."
He said he wants to give his relatives the burial they deserve.
"After the first ceasefire, we came here but we could not get anyone out of the rubble," he said.
"We called the civil defence but they said they didn't have the capacity, because they didn't have the equipment.
"We just want someone to remove this rubble, so we can retrieve the bodies and pay them respect and bring them to a cemetery."
But the scale of destruction and lack of equipment coupled with fears of renewed strikes, are making it difficult for search efforts to continue.
Lina Al-Jaura is still waiting to bury her relatives, whose bodies are trapped under debris. (ABC News)
Since the ceasefire, Israeli attacks have killed 834 people and wounded 2,365 others, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
"Even though we lost 140 of our staff throughout the war, we are still capable of fulfilling our duty," Brigadier General Al-Dahshan said.
"But what is lacking is more equipment and protective gear that will help us exhume the [deceased] from under the rubble.
"There is also a great shortage of personal protective gear for our teams. We can only remove cement blocks because we face a lack of petrol and lack of equipment."
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