Omar al-Darawi and his neighbors have spent weeks searching the ruins of a pair of four-story houses in central Gaza.
The U.N. humanitarian affairs office estimates that about 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, are missing and believed buried in the ruins.
The search is particularly difficult in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, where Israeli ground forces are battling Hamas militants.
He ticks off a handful of Deir al-Balah’s victims: 10 corpses still lost in what is left of the al-Salam Mosque; two dozen bodies missing in a destroyed home; 10 missing in another mosque attack.
OK, when will the war end?” said Abu Sama, 30, describing how families dig through the wreckage without any tools.

Thousands of bodies lie buried in rubble in Gaza. Families dig to retrieve them, often by hand