Gaza Man Digs Through Rubble to Find Family (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Mahmoud Hamad is determined to keep digging. Bone by bone, he is recovering the remains of his wife and children. Hamad and his friends have been digging for three months, since a ceasefire took hold. On their hands and knees, using shovels and sieves, searching for pieces of those most precious to Hamad. This sieve, its function is that we use it to sift the flour and make food and drink, he says. And today, what am I using it for? To sift the remains of my wife and children. The latest bones he has recovered are those of his wife and unborn child. She was nine months pregnant when the Israeli military struck their home. We have been working continuously day and night. I use the street lighting at night. Gaza's civil defense estimates more than 8,500 bodies are still buried beneath Gaza's rubble. But the search and rescue group can't make much progress. Israel is blocking the entry of most of the heavy equipment they need to excavate Gaza's ruins. It's a process that could take years, and Hamad couldn't wait. He is his family's sole survivor. All of his children were killed during the war. Worry and sorrow overwhelmed me, so I started with simple tools, a shovel and a pickaxe. I brought a demolition hammer, something like that, and began. He identified the ruins of his apartment based on pieces of tile in the color of the walls. He's been finding bits of bone ever since. Until the last soil, I will keep sifting with this sieve, until I find all the bones and weigh them. He says it is the least he can do to honor his wife, Nima, and their unborn child.