30 bodies of single Palestinian family recovered from rubble in Gaza City

​​​​​​​By Jomaa Younis and Rania Abu Shamala

GAZA CITY, Palestine/ISTANBUL (AA) - Civil defense teams retrieved the bodies of 30 victims from the same family on Tuesday from the rubble of their house in western Gaza City.

The victims were members of the Salem family, who were killed Dec. 19, 2023, in an Israeli airstrike on their house in the al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, the Civil Defense said in a statement.

Sixty family members are believed to have been killed in the attack.

The house was the first site included in an organized campaign launched by the Civil Defense to search for thousands of Palestinians believed to be trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip.

Search operations will continue using limited equipment, including an excavator, to recover the bodies from the rubble, said the agency.

Israel occupies more than half of Gaza and continues to target Palestinians in other areas outside its control, according to Palestinian authorities.

Israel has killed nearly 70,700 victims, mostly women and children, and injured more than 171,000 in Gaza since October 2023, and reduced the enclave to rubble.