Gaza Metropolis, the Gaza Strip – For greater than a yr, Ashjan Abdel Aal’s life has been suspended between grief and hope.
Two of her sons, Othman and Sami, have been lacking because the morning of June 29, 2025, after they left their displaced household’s dwelling in Gaza Metropolis – solely by no means to return.
“I would like them to return again,” the 36-year-old says via tears. “I need a day after I can see them, hug them and listen to their voices.”
Ashjan remembers the final time she noticed them.
The 2 brothers – Othman, who would now be 17, and Sami, 13 – stated they might head to an support distribution level close to the so-called Netzarim Hall in central Gaza, promising their six-year-old sister Emarat they might convey her sweets. Ashjan additionally remembers listening to that they may cross by the household’s outdated dwelling within the Shujayea neighbourhood of japanese Gaza Metropolis – one thing that they had additionally achieved beforehand – to convey again a pair of footwear for her.
The Abdel Aal household is without doubt one of the hundreds to have been compelled from their properties throughout Israel’s genocidal conflict in opposition to Palestinians within the Gaza Strip that has killed greater than 73,340 folks, in line with well being officers, and left a lot of the besieged and bombarded territory in ruins. Ashjan, her husband, Rafaat, and their youngsters discovered shelter at a relative’s home in Gaza Metropolis in April final yr, at a time when starvation, hovering costs and shortages of fundamental gadgets pushed many individuals to take dangers looking for meals.
“Individuals had been both returning to harmful areas or going to assist distribution factors as a result of that they had no different alternative,” says Rafaat, 41.
On August 1 final yr, the United Nations stated a minimum of 1,373 Palestinians had been killed whereas searching for meals since late Could 2025 – 859 close to support distribution websites and 514 alongside the routes of meals convoys.
On the day Othman and Sami left, Rafaat was away. He had additionally headed in the direction of United States-backed support distribution websites close to the Zikim space in northern Gaza.
“I used to be there for a day and a half,” he remembers. “Once I returned, my spouse instructed me that the boys had not come again. I turned very anxious and began asking about them.”
The household waited via the night, hoping, in useless, that they might return. On the next day, Rafaat started looking hospitals, displacement shelters and amongst family, however discovered no hint of his sons – since then, the boys’ disappearance has turned the household’s life into an limitless seek for solutions.
Conflicting reviews
The primary potential lead got here greater than a month later. A resident of Shujayea instructed the household he had seen 4 our bodies close to their outdated dwelling. Two had been recognized, however the different two had not.
Rafaat says the descriptions he obtained resembled his sons, however the household couldn’t affirm whether or not the our bodies had been Sami and Othman.
Then, two days later got here one other painful message. A relative shared a photograph of an unidentified physique at al-Ahli Arab Hospital, saying it appeared like Othman.
“At first look, I used to be deeply shocked,” remembers Rafaat. “I stated this was my son Othman with 90 % certainty. I went to the hospital, however after I noticed the physique, it was not my son.”
In October 2025, after Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas reached a “ceasefire” deal, Rafaat was capable of attain the realm close to their outdated dwelling in Shujayea. He discovered solely destruction. “There was a bit of a missile, fragments and a small bone remnant,” he says.
However later, the household might now not entry the realm because it fell behind the so-called Yellow Line demarcating Israeli management inside Gaza.
The search continued via the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross (ICRC) and human rights organisations, however no confirmed data was obtainable.
At instances, Rafaat says, the uncertainty turned insufferable.
“Throughout many moments, due to the immense psychological stress, I thought of going to the civil registry and requesting official demise certificates for them,” he says. “However even that was not attainable as a result of there have been no witnesses or sufficient proof confirming their deaths.”
Hopes and unanswered questions
Months later, in Could, a brand new piece of data rekindled the household’s hopes. Rafaat obtained a telephone name from his spouse’s brother who had been serving to him talk with human rights teams, worldwide establishments and legal professionals.
“He known as me and instructed me {that a} lawyer from contained in the 1948 areas, who offered herself as somebody following lacking individuals’ instances with human rights organisations and the Purple Cross, had stated that the boys had been alive and in detention” within the Israeli prisons of Ofer and Naqab, says Rafaat.
Ashjan remembers that second. “My husband instructed me, and we hugged one another and cried so arduous,” she says. “We cried as a result of we thought perhaps they had been coming again.”
The knowledge, nevertheless, was by no means formally confirmed. The household tried contacting the lawyer once more, however obtained no response. Al Jazeera additionally tried to achieve the lawyer, however the telephone numbers supplied by the household weren’t working.
“I’m like a drowning particular person holding on to any straw,” says Ashjan. “My coronary heart tells me they’re alive. I see them in my desires coming to me and telling me to not cry.”
She says earlier than the boys’ disappearance, Othman, a teen on the autism spectrum, would all the time discover when she was unhappy earlier than anybody else. “He would attempt to consolation me in any manner he might,” she says. “Due to his kindness, Sami turned very hooked up to him. He adopted him in every single place.”
Rafaat struggles to carry again tears as he listens to his spouse describe their sons. He says the boys had tried to assist the household regardless of his objections, going out in the hunt for support within the hope of bringing meals dwelling.
“Since they left, I really feel like I’m dwelling in a cycle that by no means ends,” he says. “I can not transfer ahead, and I can not cease fascinated about what occurred to them.”
Households trapped in uncertainty
The story of the Abdel Aal household displays a wider wrestle confronted by many households in Gaza who’re looking for lacking family amid the absence of confirmed data and the unfold of conflicting reviews.
Gaza’s Authorities Media Workplace estimates that some 11,200 folks stay lacking throughout the territory, together with these believed to be trapped underneath the rubble in addition to others whose whereabouts stay unknown.
Nada Abu Aita, director of the Palestinian Centre for Lacking and Forcibly Disappeared Individuals, says one of many largest challenges in documenting instances of lacking folks is what she describes because the “multiplicity of sources”.
She says the centre’s work will depend on speaking with households, accumulating particulars about disappearances and documenting the circumstances surrounding every case.
However for households already dwelling via conflict, displacement and loss, not realizing the destiny of a liked one creates one other layer of struggling.
“They stay in a state of uncertainty that stops them from persevering with their lives and even overcoming their grief for the lacking particular person,” says Abu Aita. “Within the morning, they seek for hope that they’ll discover them, and within the night, they turn into sure that they’ve died.”
She says this painful uncertainty makes households extra weak to data from unofficial sources, particularly when these sources supply the potential for discovering their lacking family.
The shortage of full data from the Israeli aspect, even for worldwide teams, leaves some households believing that unofficial mediators or legal professionals could have entry to data that established organisations don’t.
Abu Aita says the centre has obtained many reviews from households contacted by folks claiming to be legal professionals or representatives of organisations who instructed them that their family had been being held in Israeli prisons.
However after inspecting a few of these instances and checking the organisations these people claimed to signify, the centre discovered that a few of these establishments didn’t exist and that some names gave the impression to be fabricated.
“We can not drive households to imagine or reject this data,” says Abu Aita.
“In lots of instances, households select to imagine these reviews, which we classify on the centre as deceptive, as a result of they wish to maintain on to any hope that might convey their son again to them,” she provides, noting that the absence of complete official lists of detainees makes the scenario much more troublesome.
Open requests
Pat Griffiths, spokesperson for the ICRC in Jerusalem, says the organisation’s work begins with what is called a “tracing request”.
When a household approaches the ICRC, the organisation collects its contact particulars in addition to details about the lacking particular person and any obtainable particulars in regards to the circumstances of the disappearance. This enables the organisation to share confirmed data every time it turns into obtainable.
However Griffiths says the method is usually extraordinarily troublesome. “This work is usually gradual, complicated and irritating. Solutions usually are not all the time obtainable to us to share with households,” he says.
One of many largest obstacles confronted by the ICRC is that it has not had entry to Israeli locations of detention because the begin of the conflict in October 2023, regardless of continued dialogue with Israeli authorities to revive that entry.
“Which means we’re not capable of affirm to households those that are detained, like we used to,” says Griffiths.
In instances involving people who find themselves believed to have been killed, Griffiths says there are main challenges associated to looking for stays and figuring out them via forensic strategies. These difficulties, he provides, can delay affirmation for households for months and even years.
“Residing in that limbo, of not realizing the destiny or whereabouts of a misplaced liked one, is a horrible and distinctive sort of ache,” he says. “We discuss to so many households who’re going via that.”
Griffiths says the ICRC presently has “hundreds of open tracing requests”, however doesn’t publish a selected variety of lacking individuals as a result of the determine modifications day by day as new instances are opened and others are closed.
When confirmed data turns into obtainable, he says, the organisation contacts the household that opened the request, whether or not the particular person is being held someplace, unable to speak, or, in essentially the most painful state of affairs, has died.
“On the finish of the day, households have the precise to know the destiny or whereabouts of their family members. Whether or not serving to give them the chance to lastly mourn a loss, or hopefully reconnect or reunite with a liked one, we do that work for them.”
For Rafaat, each new piece of data now not brings consolation. As an alternative, it prolongs the ache as a result of the household can not confirm it.
“I don’t wish to hold wanting ceaselessly. I wish to know,” he says. “When an individual has somebody lacking, they can not grieve for them, they usually can not rejoice their return.”
As for Ashjan, she says all she desires “is one sure piece of details about their destiny”.
Along with her voice breaking, she provides: “If they’re useless, inform us. If they’re alive, inform us.”
