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Civil defense teams continue searching with heavy machinery for the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks and trapped under rubble in the al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Yunis, Gaza, on December 20, 2025. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]
Civil defense teams in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis are continuing efforts to recover the bodies of Palestinians trapped beneath rubble following Israeli attacks, as the Gaza Strip remains under blockade, Anadolu reports.
The bodies of those killed in the strikes and left buried under collapsed buildings throughout the war are being searched for by civil defense crews using heavy machinery.
Remains recovered after prolonged periods beneath the rubble, including dismembered body parts and bones, are being collected by the teams for later identification.
Israel has killed nearly 70,700 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,000 in Gaza since October 2023 and reduced the enclave to rubble.
According to the latest data from Gaza’s Government Media Office, the conflict has resulted in the complete destruction of 268,000 housing units, with 148,000 severely damaged beyond habitability and 153,000 partially damaged.
A ceasefire agreement brokered between Hamas and Israel on October 10 of last year halted large-scale military operations. However, reports indicate that Israel continues demolitions in areas under its control, and the Israeli military has been accused of hundreds of violations of the agreement, including bombardments and killings.
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Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Palestinian Catholics attend Christmas mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine on December 24, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace,” said one little girl whose grandmother was killed by an Israeli sniper.
Palestinian Catholics attend Christmas mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine on December 24, 2024.
(Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Another Somber Christmas in Palestine as Gaza Genocide Continues
“I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace,” said one little girl whose grandmother was killed by an Israeli sniper.
From the illegally occupied “little town of Bethlehem” in the West Bank to a pair of churches in Gaza where Israel’s bombs and bullets have killed clerics and congregants alike, Palestinian Christians marked another somber Christmas amid a relentless Israeli assault whose victims on Wednesday included refugees sheltering in tents and medical staff and patients at a besieged hospital.
For the second year in a row, public Christmas celebrations were canceled at the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, which is built over the spot where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born.
“This should be a time of joy and celebration. But Bethlehem is a sad town in solidarity with our siblings in Gaza,” Lutheran Pastor Munther Isaac said during his Christmas sermon at a church whose nativity display again had baby Jesus lying in a pile of rubble.
“It’s hard to believe that another Christmas has come upon us and the genocide has not stopped,” Isaac added. “Decision-makers are content to let this continue. To them, Palestinians are dispensable.”
In Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian Christians huddled in two churches amid ongoing attacks by Israeli forces.
“This year, we will conduct our religious rites and that’s it,” Ramez Souri told The New York Times at the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City. “We’re still in mourning and far too sad to celebrate, or do anything except to pray for peace.”
Hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering on the grounds of the 12th century church—Gaza’s oldest—when Israeli forces bombed it in October 2023, killing 18 people including Souri’s three children and relatives of former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.
In a pre-Christmas homily at Holy Family Church in Gaza City—Gaza’s only Catholic church— Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told congregants, “You have become the light of our church in the entire world.”
“At Christmas, we celebrate the light and ask: Where is this light?” Pizzaballa continued. “The light is here, in this church.”
“I don’t know when or how this war will end, and every time we approach the end, it seems like we start anew,” he added. “But sooner or later, the war will end, and we must not lose hope. When the war ends, we will rebuild everything: our schools, our hospitals, and our homes. We must remain resilient and full of strength.”
Like St. Porphyrius, Holy Family has suffered a deadly Israeli attack. Last December, an Israeli sniper shot Nahida Khalil Anton, the elderly matriarch of the largest Catholic family in Gaza, as she crossed a courtyard in the church compound on her way to the bathroom. Her daughter Samar was shot in the head when she rushed out to try and help her mother.
Both women died. Seven other people were shot and wounded. Israeli soldiers and veterans have said that they were given permission and even orders to shoot anyone who moves in parts of Gaza.
"I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace." A Christian Palestinian girl in Gaza wishes for peace on Christmas Day amid Israel's war, at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.
On Sunday, Pope Francis—who in a new book called for a genocide investigation of Israel’s war on Gaza—said: “Yesterday, children have been bombed. This is cruelty; this is not war.”
The cruelty continued on Christmas as Israeli attacks throughout Gaza killed at least 13 people, according to officials. The dead include people sheltering in a tent northwest of Khan Younis, Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteer Alaa al-Derawi—who was shot in the chest while at work transporting patients—and Walaa al-Faranji, a well-known fashion designer, author, and photographer who was killed along with her husband Ahmed Salama in an airstrike on their home in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Local media also reported continued Israeli shelling and attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, where staff and scores of patients including premature babies have endured weeks of siege conditions.
All told, Gaza and international agencies say that at least 45,361 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than 107,800 others wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. At least 11,000 other Gazans are missing and believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings. Millions more Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Thousands more people have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Last month, the International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, as well as for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Back at St. Porphyrius, parishioners pooled what little food they could find to prepare a communal Christmas Eve meal. Although many Gazan Christians have expressed fears that their community—one of the oldest Christian communities in the world—could be wiped out by Israel’s genocidal onslaught, the holiday meal represented a faint glimmer of hope.
“We wanted to do something to show that we’re still here,” Souri explained, “despite it all.”
A woman stands holding a child surrounded by the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, Gaza on June 23, 2024. (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)
“No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try and find their child’s body,” said the Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East.
The humanitarian group Save the Children estimated Monday that around 21,000 kids are missing in the Gaza Strip as Israel’s military continues its assault on the enclave, reducing much of the Palestinian territory to rubble.
Roughly 4,000 kids are likely buried under that debris, according to Save the Children, while at least 17,000 are unaccompanied, an “unknown number” are in mass graves, and others have been “detained and forcibly transferred out of Gaza, their whereabouts unknown to their families amidst reports of ill-treatment and torture.”
A child protection specialist with Save the Children said that the group finds more unaccompanied children every day in Gaza, where parents and entire families have been wiped out by Israel’s relentless bombing campaign and ground invasion.
“We work through partners to identify separated and unaccompanied children and trace their families, but there are no safe facilities for them—there is no safe place in Gaza,” said the Save the Children specialist. “Besides, reuniting them with family members is difficult when ongoing hostilities restrict our access to communities, and constantly force families to move.”
“Neighbors and extended family members who have taken in lone children are struggling to meet their basic needs, such as shelter, food, and water,” they added. “Many are with strangers—or completely alone—increasing the risk of violence, abuse exploitation, and neglect.”
“We desperately need a cease-fire to find and support the missing children who have survived, and to prevent more families from being destroyed.”
More than 14,000 children have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 7, and many others have experienced devastating psychological and physical trauma, including the loss of limbs. Dozens of children have also been starved to death in recent months as Israel’s blockade hinders the flow of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Conditions for children have further deteriorated since Israel’s invasion of Rafah, which has forced roughly a million people to flee the city. Last month, Israeli forces used U.S.-made bombs in an attack on a Rafah camp sheltering displaced people, killing dozens—including women and children. The United Nations Human Rights Office said that infants were “torn apart” in the attack and people were “trapped inside burning plastic tents, leading to a horrific casualty toll.”
Save the Children stressed Monday that its count of Gaza’s missing kids is far from conclusive, given the difficulty of collecting accurate information in areas under near-constant attack. The group noted that “confirming identification of a body by the next of kin is almost impossible when whole families have been wiped out and entry restrictions mean the equipment and experts needed cannot get in.”
Jeremy Stoner, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East, said that “families are tortured by the uncertainty of the whereabouts of their loved ones.”
“No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try and find their child’s body. No child should be alone, unprotected in a war zone. No child should be detained or held hostage,” said Stoner. “Children who are missing but living are vulnerable, face grave protection risks, and must be found. They must be protected and reunited with their families. For the children who have been killed, their deaths must be formally marked, their families informed, burial rites respected, and accountability sought.”
“As many have pointed out, Gaza has become a graveyard for children, with thousands of others missing, their fates unknown,” he added. “There must be an independent investigation and those responsible must be held accountable. We desperately need a cease-fire to find and support the missing children who have survived, and to prevent more families from being destroyed.”
Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
