Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Palestine – With a heavy heart, keen eyes and trembling hands, Abu Muhammed Ghaith meticulously searched through the thick nylon bags used as makeshift shrouds for those killed in Gaza. Inside the morgue at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, he was hoping to find a trace of his missing son. Instead, he was met only with unidentified body parts and fragmented remains.The sight left him collapsed on the ground, overwhelmed by grief and exhaustion. Yet, he gathered his strength and continued searching for any trace of 17-year-old Muhammed, shifting his focus from bodies to personal items: a pair of sandals patched with yellow plastic or an orange sweater, a black jacket, tracksuit pants – anything that could belong to his son.
“Has anyone seen a patched sandal with a yellow sole? Please, if you find it, let me know,” Abu Muhammed pleaded with others who, like him, had come to the morgue early on Tuesday to look for their loved ones among the remains of dozens of bodies that the Palestinian Civil Defence had salvaged from beneath the rubble in Rafah, south of Khan Younis on the Egyptian border. Tears streamed down his face as he sank to his knees and leaned against the wall. “I’m no longer looking for his body – just his sandal. You see what we’ve come to?” he muttered, a mix of sorrow and helplessness in his voice. Advertisement
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