Daily Times Editorials 17th September 2026

End the Bloodshed

Rescuers in Gaza City were still digging through concrete on Wednesday after a war-damaged apartment block in Tal al-Hawa collapsed overnight, killing at least 20 Palestinians, including children. Dozens remained missing. Families had returned to the building despite warnings about its condition because, like thousands of others across Gaza, they had few places left to go. The building did not fall during an air strike. Damage inflicted earlier had left it standing just long enough to become somebody’s home again.

That says much about Gaza today. Around 2,000 damaged buildings are still inhabited, while UN officials estimate that some 400 structures are at risk of collapse. Winter will make many of them more dangerous. A ceasefire may reduce the intensity of fighting, but it cannot provide a roof to families with nowhere else to sleep.

The Tal al-Hawa collapse came only a day after UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk raised another grim concern. More than 630 bodies and human remains have reportedly been recovered from destroyed buildings since November 2025, while Palestinian authorities estimate that more than 8,000 people may still lie beneath Gaza’s rubble. Türk called for international investigators to be given access and warned that evidence relevant to possible war crimes must be preserved as debris is cleared.Geographic Reference

The rubble is therefore much more than a reconstruction problem. It contains the dead, possible evidence, unexploded weapons and buildings that can still collapse on the living. Families who have waited years deserve the chance to identify and bury their relatives. Even that work is proceeding with severe limitations. Gaza Civil Defence says it lacks the heavy machinery needed to reach people trapped beneath collapsed structures. UN officials have also pointed to shortages of excavators and other specialist equipment. In Tal al-Hawa, rescuers reported hearing voices beneath the rubble while working with limited tools.Architecture

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is preparing a proposed $2.8 billion arms package for Israel that, according to US officials, includes 40,000 bombs: 20,000 2,000 lb MK-84s and another 20,000 BLU-117s. Delivery of the MK-84s had previously been halted amid concern over the potential for mass casualties when such weapons are used in densely populated Gaza. Ironically speaking, as Gaza needs cranes, excavators, structural engineers, explosive-ordnance teams and equipment capable of recovering people from beneath buildings already destroyed, another substantial consignment of heavy munitions is being prepared for Israel. There are an estimated 61 million tonnes of debris across Gaza. Clearing it will take years even under favourable conditions. Before any serious rebuilding can begin, unsafe buildings must be surveyed, families moved to adequate shelter, human remains recovered and unexploded ordnance removed. International investigators also need access if evidence buried beneath the destruction is to be preserved. None of this brings back those already killed. It can prevent the ruins from claiming more lives. *

Beyond Culling

Sindh’s rabies crisis has reached the point where doctors are openly asking the government to consider humane culling of stray dogs. The Pakistan Medical Association’s Karachi chapter says 285,000 dog-bite cases were reported across the province last year and another 83,000 in the first three months of 2026. By late August, the recorded rabies death toll had climbed to 25.

The frustration behind the PMA’s demand is understandable. Children cannot be expected to negotiate packs of aggressive dogs on their way to school, nor should citizens be told that fear of being bitten is the price of humane animal management. The government’s first responsibility is public safety.

Yet mass killing offers the appearance of control without necessarily controlling rabies. The World Health Organisation is unequivocal that indiscriminate dog destruction has not proved effective in interrupting transmission. Vaccinating at least 70 per cent of the at-risk dog population remains the accepted route to breaking the cycle, with targeted removal of ownerless, unvaccinated or dangerous animals available as a supplementary measure. Our failure lies in having adopted the right policy without giving it the scale needed to work. At the end of last year, only Rs 66.255 million of Rs 265 million allocated for mass vaccination and sterilisation had been released, while the provincial programme had just seven fully functional centres, six of them in Karachi. A programme this thin cannot plausibly keep pace with a free-roaming dog population spread across an entire province.Compare Pet Insurance

Meanwhile, five rabies deaths within three weeks recently led to the suspension of four doctors and action against several health officials. The subsequent review found that 278 anti-rabies units had been audited, 138,000 vaccine doses and 5,000 doses of rabies immunoglobulin administered, and treatment capacity expanded. The chief secretary has now ordered a digital dashboard to track bites, treatment schedules and vaccine stocks. These are all useful measures. No qualms about that. Still, the real test is whether a patient bitten in remote cities receives the correct treatment immediately rather than beginning a desperate journey to Karachi after symptoms appear.

Once rabies symptoms develop, medicine can do very little. That is why every death should trigger an administrative audit. Dog control also begins well before the catching van arrives. Open garbage dumps provide an endless food supply for roaming animals. Abandoned pets replenish street populations. Municipal authorities that cannot collect waste regularly cannot expect sterilisation teams alone to solve the problem. The province therefore needs permanent dog-catching and vaccination teams, properly funded sterilisation centres, reliable post-exposure treatment throughout the province, compulsory vaccination of owned dogs and targeted humane euthanasia of rabid or demonstrably dangerous animals. Poisoning healthy dogs by the thousands would merely substitute spectacle for administration. At the end of the day, PMA’s warning should be heard for what it is: evidence that medical professionals have lost confidence in years of half-executed population-control schemes. *