Thousands of Gaza Families Still Searching for Missing Relatives
DID Press: Thousands of Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip remain unaware of the fate of missing relatives, months or even years after their disappearance. Human rights activists say the crisis has been compounded by a lack of information about detainees and widespread destruction of residential areas.
Omar Nofal, head of the Government Committee for Missing Persons in Gaza, said 21,500 missing-person cases have so far been officially registered. According to him, the fate of 6,000 people remains unknown, while around 8,000 others are believed to be buried beneath the rubble. These figures cover only officially registered cases, with thousands more reportedly unreported.
Among the families still searching for missing relatives is 52-year-old Palestinian mother Tahani Fayyad, who has been looking for her 22-year-old son, Manar, since November 2024. She said her son left the family’s tent in the al-Mawasi area and never returned.
Fayyad has kept her son’s clothes and personal belongings. Every day, she looks at his photographs and videos on her mobile phone.
“My entire life has been turned upside down. I know nothing about my son, and no one is giving us an answer about what happened to him or where he is now,” she told the media.
Manar’s family said they had examined more than 70 bodies in an effort to identify him and had contacted hospitals, police centres and the Red Crescent, but had received no answers.
Another father, 56-year-old Palestinian Ahmed al-Astal, has been searching for his 15-year-old son, Saeed, since February 2024. The teenager disappeared while attempting to return to the family home in northern Khan Younis.
Al-Astal said Israeli human rights organizations had denied that his son was being held in detention, but the response had failed to resolve the uncertainty surrounding his fate.
Hussein Hammad, a human rights activist in Gaza, said missing persons include people trapped beneath rubble, detainees and individuals who disappeared during attacks.
Hammad accused Israel of concealing the fate of detainees and described the situation as a form of “psychological warfare and collective punishment.”
He called for the establishment of an independent international commission to investigate the fate of missing persons, unrestricted access for the Red Cross to Israeli detention facilities, and the creation of a national DNA database.
According to figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. Meanwhile, thousands of families continue to wait for news about their missing loved ones.