Gaza, June 28 (EFE).- More than eight months after an Israeli airstrike reduced a residential building in Gaza City to rubble, rescuers have finally begun searching for eight victims still trapped beneath the debris using heavy machinery rented by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Recovering the dead in what has become an open-air cemetery is no simple task. Israel prohibits the entry of both reconstruction materials and heavy machinery into Gaza under an extensive list of restricted goods that humanitarian organizations describe as arbitrary.
Even if COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for coordinating civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, approves the entry of equipment such as excavators, aid organizations must specify in advance how and by whom it will be used, effectively preventing Gaza’s Civil Defense, which operates under the Hamas-run administration, from using it.
Basal said the Civil Defense lacks excavators, bulldozers, and other heavy equipment.
«Everything was destroyed at the beginning of the war,» he said, adding that, if allowed access to machinery already offered by international organizations, rescue teams could recover many of the remaining victims within three months.
