The Gaza missing persons search has left thousands of families without answers, as mothers across the territory wait to learn whether their sons and daughters are dead, buried under rubble, or held in Israeli detention without notification.
Majdiya al Madhoun, speaking from her partially destroyed home in Gaza City, shows videos of her son Ahmed on her phone. In one he cuddles a kitten, sticking out his tongue in delight. In another he belly flops into a swimming pool. Ahmed, who has Down’s syndrome, disappeared in May 2025 after going to a local shop during a period of Israeli strikes in the area. He was 21. ‘My God, I am not at peace,’ Majdiya told the BBC. ‘I have not lost hope but whether they find him alive or dead, buried under the rubble, only then will I be at peace.’
Scale of the missing in Gaza
More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign, including about 1,200 since a ceasefire was announced last October, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, figures the UN considers reliable. Israeli media reported in January that a senior Israeli security source said the military accepts the figures are accurate. The true number of dead could be significantly higher: the health ministry’s count does not include bodies buried under the rubble, meaning many of the missing fall outside the official toll.
The Red Cross says it has received more than 5,000 requests to trace missing people who could be buried amid the destruction. Gaza’s Civil Defence agency believes the number of missing is over 8,000. Bodies are being discovered daily. Earlier this month a mass funeral took place in Gaza City for more than a hundred people killed in an Israeli attack in 2023, their remains only recently recovered and identified.
The Red Cross has said recovering bodies is difficult given the scale of destruction and a lack of bulldozers. Identifying remains is also challenging when people have been dead for extended periods, compounded by a lack of DNA testing due to Israeli restrictions on what can enter Gaza.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has facilitated the transport within Gaza of over 2,200 Palestinian detainees in the last two years. However, Israel has not permitted the ICRC access to its prison records, leaving families unable to establish through that channel whether a missing relative is being held.
Families face Gaza missing persons search on two fronts
For some families, the Gaza missing persons search extends beyond the rubble into the Israeli detention system. Over almost three years of conflict, Israeli forces have detained approximately 7,000 Palestinians from Gaza, more than 5,000 of whom were later released without ever being charged, according to the Israel-based Public Committee Against Torture. As of this month, around 1,300 detainees from Gaza are being held in Israeli jails without charge or trial, according to the Israeli human rights group HaMoked, which adds those figures do not include Gaza detainees held directly by the Israeli military.
Palestinian families have frequently not been notified by Israel of the arrest or whereabouts of their relatives, according to HaMoked and other rights groups. Israeli authorities have previously said prolonged detentions were due to wartime security grounds and rejected claims that detentions are arbitrary.
Aida al Drimli from Gaza City’s Sabra district has been searching for her son Mahmoud since he disappeared in 2024. His father visited hospitals to look at bodies. Then, this summer, a photograph emerged on social media showing two Israeli soldiers posing with a Palestinian detainee, blindfolded and bound. Aida is certain it is Mahmoud. ‘From his features, from his forehead, his mouth, his nose, the way he sits, the way he closes his mouth, his hands, his legs from below. He has the exact same features as my son,’ she told the BBC. With only a single photograph she acknowledges she cannot be sure. ‘When my husband sat down and showed me the photo, I was relieved,’ she said. ‘But at the same time, I was very upset and my heart was broken when I saw my son looking like that. It was humiliating.’
Both the al Drimli and al Madhoun families say neither they nor their sons have any affiliation with Hamas or any militant group in Gaza. The Israel Prison Service told the BBC it had no record of holding either man. The Israeli military, which also runs detention centres, did not respond to the same question.
Supreme Court ruling and pressure on Israel
The difficulty families face in tracing detainees has deepened in the absence of ICRC prison access. Israel’s Supreme Court has since unanimously rejected a government policy banning ICRC representatives from visiting Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, Al Jazeera reported. The ruling adds legal pressure on Israeli authorities at a moment when international scrutiny of detention conditions is growing.
The United Nations’ annual report on conflict-related sexual violence verified in 2025 cited torture, rape, gang rape, forced nudity and cavity searches conducted without apparent security justification, perpetrated by Israeli armed forces and security forces primarily during detention and interrogation across several sites, Al Jazeera also reported.
Tal Steiner, an Israeli lawyer who works to locate Palestinians who may have been detained by Israel, told the BBC the ban on ICRC prison visits and the fact that the ICRC holds no lists of people held by Israel means cases must be traced individually, per request by their families. ‘It’s a big strain on the ability to find those people, today,’ she said. ‘It’s an open wound. It doesn’t heal. They have no rest not even knowing if their relative is dead or alive.’ She added that over the last three years Israel has made it much more difficult to trace possible Palestinian detainees. ‘To those not knowing where their family members are, that really adds insult to injury.’
Israel does not allow international journalists, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza. The Al Drimli family has asked the Red Cross to establish whether Mahmoud is being held, a search that continues with no confirmed answer.
