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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem and Seham Tantesh in Gaza. Graphics by Ana Lucía González Paz, Lucy Swan and Paul Scruton

The grim task of recovering thousands of bodies from the rubble of Gaza

It has been described as one of the most gruelling recovery efforts in modern warfare.

As negotiations over the fragile Gaza ceasefire continue, Palestinians have started to dig through 61m tonnes of debris, 20 times more than the combined mass of all debris generated by conflicts since 2008. Underneath, at least 10,000 people are thought to be buried.

The Guardian spoke with several families in Gaza desperately searching for the bodies of their missing relatives, as well as members of the Palestinian civil defence, a branch of the security services responsible for emergency services and rescue operations. Photos, video footage and data shed light on the scale of the task ahead.

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