In a grim discovery, rescue crews in Gaza City have extracted 19 bodies, predominantly women and children, from the debris of a collapsed residential building. The recovery operation, which concluded on Saturday, is part of an ongoing and laborious process to locate the deceased beneath the rubble of numerous structures destroyed during recent conflicts. The lack of heavy machinery exacerbates this challenge, as it hinders the clearance of broken concrete slabs. Mohammed Abu Dan, overseeing recovery efforts, announced that operations have been completed at the "Karam" building in Gaza's western region after four days of tireless manual search and rescue efforts. Specialised medical teams and civil defence crews are now preparing to shift their focus to another site within Gaza City to continue their life-searching mission. The absence of heavy machinery capable of shifting concrete slabs has forced recovery teams to rely on rudimentary tools and exhaustive manual labor, as per civil defence officials. As per the latest count by Gaza's Health Ministry, over 8,000 individuals remain missing beneath the rubble across the territory since last year's ceasefire. Since October 2023, at least 1,254 people have been killed, 4,121 wounded, and 804 bodies recovered from debris, according to ministry records. The overall death toll surpasses 73,300, with over 174,000 reported injuries. This recovery effort follows a mass funeral held on Tuesday for 112 individuals from the Abu Sharia and al-Hasayna families, whose remains were recovered from a destroyed residential block in Gaza's Sabra neighborhood, which was levelled during an Israeli strike in November 2023.