Gaza Herald _More than two and a half years after an Israeli bombardment wiped out an entire residential block in Gaza City’s Al-Sabra neighborhood, rescue crews have completed a painstaking recovery operation that uncovered only a fraction of those killed.
The attack, carried out on November 22, 2023, struck homes belonging to the Abu Sharia and Al-Hassaina families with a series of intense airstrikes, flattening the entire neighborhood. The area remained buried beneath rubble for years, while Israeli restrictions prevented Civil Defense teams from reaching the victims.
Recovery efforts finally began on July 14, 2026, after rescue crews gained access to the site. Working with only a single piece of heavy machinery, teams faced enormous challenges removing debris and searching for human remains.
The operation ended on August 1, revealing the scale of the devastation.
According to Civil Defense teams, 308 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including 44 children under the age of 16, 37 women, and more than 10 people with disabilities.
Despite weeks of excavation, rescue workers recovered the remains of only 112 victims, roughly one-third of those believed to have been killed.
The search also exposed the severity of the bombardment. Rescue teams found human remains scattered throughout the site, while many victims could not be recovered because, according to crews, their bodies had been completely obliterated by the force of the explosions.
Today, the flattened neighborhood remains a visible testament to one of the deadliest attacks on a single residential block during the war, while hundreds of families continue to mourn relatives whose remains have never been found.
