For more than two years, their families could not reach them.
On Saturday, the bodies and remains of around 100 Palestinians finally lay before their relatives in Gaza City, recovered from beneath homes destroyed in Israeli attacks and gathered for a long-delayed farewell.
Near the Imam al-Shafi'i Mosque in the southeastern Zeitoun neighborhood, rows of remains were draped in Palestinian flags as families lit candles, laid flowers and moved among photographs and the names of children, women, men and elderly victims.
Some searched for relatives they had not seen since their homes were bombed. Others stood over remains that bore little resemblance to the people they remembered beyond what had allowed them to be identified.
The remains were recovered in recent days by Gaza's Civil Defense from homes belonging to the Rahim, Balawi, Malaka and Qanbour families as part of a project to retrieve Palestinians still buried beneath buildings destroyed during Israel's war on the enclave.
Civil Defense crews are working with only a handful of excavators and worn-out equipment because of Israeli restrictions on the entry of machinery needed for recovery operations.
Among the mourners was Maryam Hassan al-Balawi, standing before members of the family she had waited years to recover. Malak, her only surviving daughter, stood beside her.
"My husband and my children were killed. I have no one left except my only surviving daughter, Malak," Balawi told Anadolu.
"My whole life is gone. My husband and my children are gone. I have no life left," she said, adding that Malak still cries every day for her father and siblings.
Balawi also recalled a final request from her husband before he was killed.
"If I die, shroud me with your own hands and bury me with your own hands," she recalled him telling her.
For more than two years, she could not fulfill that wish.
"What am I supposed to do? My home is gone, my children are gone, my life is gone," she said.
Yet recovering the remains brought a measure of relief after years in which Balawi repeatedly returned to the ruins where her family remained buried.
"When they brought them out, I felt some relief in my heart, as though my soul came out with them," she said. "I used to go there every day and say: 'God, let them come out so I can see them.' Today, after they were recovered, I feel a little peace."
For Balawi, much of that pain rests with Malak.
"What did my daughter do to deserve this?" she asked. "She cries every day. She wants her father and her brothers and sisters."
"She says: 'What did I do, Dad? Why did they bomb them? They did nothing.'"
Jadallah Rahim stood nearby beside the remains of 32 relatives killed when their home was struck Feb. 19, 2024. More than 15 were children and around 10 were women, he said.
"Their only 'fault' was that they stayed in their homes," said Rahim. "They were suddenly bombed and they were all killed in an instant."
Thirty-three people had been inside, said Rahim, pointing to a girl standing nearby.
"She was number 33. She was the only survivor."
The others remained beneath the destroyed home for around two-and-a-half years before Civil Defense crews were finally able to reach them after days of digging with limited equipment.
Looking toward the names placed beside the remains, Rahim stressed that those before him were not merely casualty figures.
"These are not numbers," he said. "Look at their names. Men, women, children, elderly people."
Recovery ended one wait but reopened another wound.
"This is not joy," said Rahim. "The grief came back. The pain came back. The tears came back."
He pointed to a young girl moving among the remains of her family, saying she lost her father, mother, sisters and brothers.
"Today she walks among them crying for her grandfather, her father, her mother, her brother, her sister and her grandmother."
For Rahim, however, recovering the dead also meant finally giving them a burial after years beneath the rubble.
As darkness settled above Zeitoun, candles continued to burn beside the rows of remains, surrounded by flowers, Palestinian flags and families who had waited years for this moment.
On Sunday morning, they are expected to carry their loved ones in a mass funeral procession.
The second phase of the Civil Defense recovery project covers 147 destroyed homes in Gaza City and the northern and central Gaza Strip, where an estimated 1,072 bodies are beneath the rubble.
During the first phase, launched in November 2025, crews recovered around 333 bodies and sets of remains from 54 destroyed homes and buildings.
Since October 2023, Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 73,651 Palestinians and injured 174,575, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
For the families in Zeitoun, however, the numbers tell only part of the story.
After more than two years beneath the rubble, their dead had finally come home.
