Deial Al Bara, Gaza City (AP) – When the Israeli bombs began to fall, Mohammad al Najar, his wife and six children fled their homes in South Gaza late at night, dispersed in terror along with hundreds of people from their neighbours.
The dust settled and Al Najar was huddled with his family in a shelter several miles away when his son Ahmad, 23, went missing. After dawn, the family searched at a nearby hospital and asked their neighbors if they had seen him.
There were no traces. Almost two years later, they are still looking.
“It’s as if the earth had swallowed him,” Mohammad al-Najal said. He spoke along the southern coast of Gaza from the family tents of Mwasi. Their 9th displacement The first camp since that fateful night in December 2023.
Thousands of Gaza are searching for relatives who have gone missing in one of the most devastating wars of decades. Some are buried beneath the destroyed buildings. Others like Al Najar’s son, It simply disappeared Israeli military operations.
In a war where the true number of deaths is unknown, “no one knows the exact number (of those who are missing),” said Kathryn Bomberger, director of the International Committee on Missing Persons.
The Al-Najjar family searched the tile ble of the bombed house. They went to Morgue and checked with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“Is he a prisoner (in Israel)? Is he dead?” said his 46-year-old father. “We are lost. We are all tormented by everything.”
Israeli prison services and the military declined to comment on Arnajal’s position, saying it could not identify details about the particular prisoner.
A huge task
According to the Ministry of Health, around 6,000 people are still buried under the tile rub by relatives. In some cases, the true number is probably thousands higher The whole family Zaher Al-Wahidi, the ministry official responsible for the data, was killed in one bombing and no one reported missing.
Separately, the ministry received reports from the families of around 3,600 other families who have gone missing, Alwahidi said their fate was unknown. So far, we have only investigated over 200 cases. Of these, seven were found to have been detained by Israel. Others were not among those known to be buried under the tiled rub.
The ministry is part of Hamasran government. The United Nations and many independent experts believe the numbers are reliable.
ICRC has its own separate lists that are missing. At least 7,000 cases have not yet been resolved.
There were many ways to disappear during the chaos of attacks, strikes on buildings, and the massive displacement of almost every 2.3 million people in Gaza. Hundreds were either detained at Israeli checkpoints or were rounded up in an assault without notice to their families.
The bodies remained on the streets during the Israeli ground attack. Palestinians are shot when they get too close to Israel’s military zones, and their bodies break down after weeks or months.
Israeli forces say they are searching for Israeli hostages and Palestinians, identifying them as extremists. It’s back Hundreds of corpses Without identifying them with Gaza where they were buried Anonymous mass graves.
The bomber said they need missing DNA technology, samples from family and unidentified bodies, as well as aerial images to find burial sites and mass graves. “It’s a huge job,” she said.
However, Israel has restricted DNA testing supplies from entering Gaza, according to the bombers and the Gaza Health Ministry. Israeli military authorities do not immediately comment when asked whether they were banned.
Bomberger said it is the state’s responsibility to find the missing person. In this case, Israel as the right to occupation. “So you’d want to rely on the political will of the Israeli authorities and do something about it.”
Her son’s scent
Fadwa Al-Ghalban believed that Israeli forces were already departing from an area near the southern town of Maan, and had no words about her 27-year-old son Mosaab from July when he got food from the family home.
His cousin nearby saw the mozab lying on the ground. They cried out his name, but he did not answer, and with the nearby Israeli army it was not too safe to approach him, and they left. They speculated he had died.
Later, they returned, and the family didn’t find their bodies, only their slippers.
Her family made notifications on social media, hoping that someone would have seen the mozabs in Israeli detention and buried him after finding his body.
Al Garban has hope. Another relative was presumed to have died, but then, four days after the family officially received the people of Sad Dol, they learned that he was in an Israeli prison.
Whatever the fate of her son, “There is fire in my heart,” said Al Garban. “If anyone buried him, it would be much easier than this fire.”
Rights groups say Israel has “disappeared” hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza and detained them without charges or trial.
Israel has not made public the number held except for the Freedom of Information Act’s request. Under the wartime revision of Israeli law, detainees in Gaza will be held without a 75-day judicial review and will be able to deny lawyers for longer. Previous appearances of judges are usually made secretly via video.
Israeli human rights groups have obtained records showing 2,662 Palestinians from Gaza as of September It was held in a prison in Israelin addition to hundreds of other people, Army Facilities Rights organization, united nations and detainees I’ve reported it Routine abuse and torture.
The Algarban left all the clothes his son left. She refuses to wash them.
“I smell them. I want to smell him,” she said, her voice shed tears. “I keep imagining him coming and walking towards me in the tent. He says he’s not dead.”
Even in the ring
With most of Gaza bulldozers being destroyed, the family must search for them themselves through the wreckage, hoping to find even the bones of their lost loved ones.
Khaled Nassar’s daughter, Dalia, 28, and his son, Mahmoud, 24, were killed in separate airstrikes, and both were buried under the house in Jabariya refugee camp.
The rescuers had little access to Jabarya. Jabarya has been hit by repeated strikes, raids and ground attacks, and is now out of Israeli military control and off-limits.
Dahlia and her husband were killed at home on October 9, 2023, the third day of the war. Her children survived. They now live with their grandfather.
“We searched, but we couldn’t find her,” Nasser said. “It looked like she had evaporated on the rocket.”
A year later, Israel raided the family’s home and filled Mahmoud, who returned to the shower at home after the family was evacuated.
When the ceasefire began in January, Nassar and his wife Cadra went looking for him. Every day, the 60-year-old father, a former construction worker, used a hammer, shovel and small tools to scrape the tiles. His wife carried away a bucket of sand and debris.
They dug half the house and found nothing. Israel then broke the ceasefire in March, and they had to escape.
Cadra rejects despair. If there is a new ceasefire, she will resume digging, saying, “I can find a circle (of Mahmoud) in his fingers, or just put my son’s grave in the grave and call it.”
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El Deeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press Correspondents in Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv in Israel, Julia Frankel in New York, Jamie Keaton in Geneva and Touka Ezidin in Cairo contributed to the report.
