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PBS News Hour - Segments

Gaza families dig through rubble searching for loved ones' remains

PBS News Hour - Segments

PBS NewsHour

News, Daily News

4.11K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2026

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Gaza, some families are digging through rubble with their bare hands as they search for loved ones. Nick Schifrin and our Gaza producer Shams Odeh have this look at one man's desperate search for his deceased family. And a warning, images in this story are disturbing. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0

Today, Israeli authorities took an unprecedented step and began to bulldoze the United Nations

0:06.1

main office for Palestinian refugees. Israel had banned it from the country, accusing it of

0:11.8

being complicit in Hamas' terrorism and governance in Gaza. President Trump today said the

0:17.4

Board of Peace that is designed to run Gaza might replace the UN, though he said

0:21.9

the UN needed to continue its work. But if the U.S. is hoping to give Palestinians a better future,

0:28.1

in Gaza it feels a long way off. Nick Schifrin and our Gaza producer Shams-O-Dae have

0:34.1

this look at one man's desperate search for his deceased family.

0:38.3

And a warning, images in this story are disturbing.

0:43.3

Today in Gaza, Palestinians often don't go home to live.

0:46.3

They go home to find the dead.

0:49.3

Not with cranes or bulldozers, which aren't available.

0:53.3

Just shovels and bare hands, and an unbearable

0:56.1

weight of grief.

0:59.2

Mahmoud Hamad walks down to where he used to live, where he lost everything.

1:03.6

He survived what he says was the Israeli strike that destroyed his house and stole his world.

1:10.6

I am standing outside of this house to say that what happened to me has happened to

1:14.6

every Gazan.

1:15.6

My house, like the whole area, was targeted by a huge fire belt.

1:21.6

He moves slowly, digging debris carefully because he is looking for all of his children, his wife, Samar, and the unborn

1:29.8

baby he'll never meet.

1:33.1

She was pregnant.

1:34.8

When we were in school, she was in her seventh or eighth month of pregnancy.

...

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