Uncertainty torments the families of Gaza’s missing
A 10-year-old girl. An engineer. A rising singer. They are among thousands who have been reported missing in Gaza.
Many disappeared under the rubble after airstrikes. Others are believed to have been detained at Israeli checkpoints while fleeing south or trying to return to the north. Some simply left one day and never came back.
Their desperate families search hospitals and contact hotlines set up by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They scour photos of bodies in the streets and of blindfolded men detained by Israeli forces. They share pictures of relatives online, pleading for leads.
From October through February, the ICRC received reports of 5118 Palestinians missing in Gaza. The Washington Post interviewed 15 people who lost contact with friends and family in Gaza since October 7 - in only two cases were they able to find them. The most painful part, many said, was being in the dark about their fate.
“We hoped that we would succeed in getting even the most basic information,” said Ahmed Jalal, whose brother-in-law Mahmoud Abu Hani, a 25-year-old singer of traditional Arab music, disappeared on February 3 while trying to return home to Gaza City.
“Being lost is harder than him having been killed in the war or detained,” Jalal said. “When you are lost, no one knows anything.”
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 31,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which says the majority of the dead are women and children.
The ministry relies mostly on reports from hospitals for its death counts. With the enclave’s medical system in shambles, Palestinian health officials say many more deaths have gone unrecorded. Roads are impassable and communication networks are unreliable. Israel, meanwhile, will not disclose the identities of the hundreds of residents rights groups believe its forces have detained.
The IDF did not comment for this story, but has said previously that “suspects of terrorist activities” in Gaza are arrested and “brought to Israeli territory for further investigation.” Those found not to be involved in terrorist activity are sent back to Gaza, the military has said, and those who remain in detention are treated in accordance with Israeli law.
In the initial weeks of Israel’s air campaign, the missing were mainly believed to be trapped, dead or alive, under rubble.
Mohammed Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defence emergency services in Gaza, estimates that 8000 bodies remain in the wreckage. During the first months of the war, rescue teams raced to strike sites when they could. But without proper equipment, he said, they were often left to dig people out by hand - or not at all.
Bassal says his teams in Gaza City rarely find full bodies now, instead uncovering partial remains - most decomposed and unidentifiable.
Ghada al-kurd, 38, believes her brother, Safwat, his wife, Maysoon, and their 10-year-old daughter, Habiba, are among those lost in the ruins.
Kurd’s sister called on November 19 to say that a missile had struck the three-storey house where their brother was staying in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. At first, neighbours said no one was home. Then they saw legs protruding from the rubble.
But without heavy equipment, Kurd said by phone from Rafah, rescuers “were unable to recover them, and they are still missing.” The family is not in the health ministry’s official list of the dead.
Israel has denied the ICRC access to its detention centres since October 7. Hamas has also refused the ICRC’S requests to visit Israelis kidnapped by the group on October 7. More than 100 remain in captivity in Gaza.
“We understand the immense pain of family members who are anxiously waiting for news of their loved one, and the frustration when this doesn’t happen in a timely manner,” said ICRC spokeswoman Sarah Davies.
Ziad Musa’s friend, Adel Abu Aisha, an engineer at a Coca Cola bottling facility, disappeared during an Israeli raid two months ago in Gaza City, Musa said. He suspects he was detained.
The IDF did not respond to questions about Aisha and Halabi.
The Israeli rights group Hamoked has received reports of 425 Gazans, nearly all men, believed to have been detained since late October. Israeli authorities, including the Supreme Court, have repeatedly rejected Hamoked’s petitions for the information to be made public, Montell said.
“We have been trying to get an answer to the very simple question of who is the address for a response to the status of Gaza detainees,” she said. “We are not able to provide any relief to these families.”