A young child cried out, “Daddy, why did you leave us?” as she gazed down at her father’s shrouded body outside the Nasser Hospital in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.
In the clip captured by an NBC News crew on Thursday, rows of corpse bags were lying on the ground all around her. During Israel’s offensive in the enclave, families gathered to grieve for their loved ones whose remains were recovered from the debris of homes and structures that had collapsed.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have returned to their homes in the six days since the hostage-release agreement and fire between Israel and Hamas went into force. Many have discovered their neighborhoods have been reduced to ruins.
Israel began its lethal invasion in the enclave after Hamas-led strikes on October 7, 2023, which, according to Israeli estimates, killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. The attacks marked a significant escalation in a battle that had been going on for decades.
Health officials in the enclave say that since then, almost 47,000 people have died in Gaza.
However, the UN, aid organizations, and Palestinian officials have cautioned that once victims buried in the rubble are taken into consideration, the death toll is likely to be far higher, even though some may never be discovered.
Since Sunday’s ceasefire went into force, 162 people’s remains have already been discovered in various locations throughout the enclave, according to a statement released by Gaza’s Civil Defense Agency on Thursday and posted to Telegram.
According to the statement, there is concern that thousands of people’s bodies may still be buried beneath debris, and personnel had trouble locating and retrieving them because of a shortage of heavy machinery and equipment.
Some of the body bags outside the Nasser Hospital bore the names and personal information of the deceased. Others were exposed.
Ismael Hussein Abou Reeda told NBC News that the shelling prevented anyone from getting to them. Reeda from Khuza a, a community in the Khan Younis Governorate close to Israel’s border, stated that once the truce was implemented, people began looking for their loved ones.
Drone footage taken earlier this week by NBC News crews in the southern Gaza city of Rafah revealed extensive destruction throughout the city, with homes reduced to rubble for miles.
Walid Abu Libdeh, a 61-year-old engineer, told NBC News crew on Wednesday that the level of destruction was similar to that of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the Japanese cities destroyed by American atomic bombs at the end of World War II, when he returned to look for his home in the city.
“Where are the homes? Where are the trees? Where are the animals? “Where are our loved ones?” he said.