Gaza — With hundreds of households in Gaza but to reconcile with the disappearances of their family members, the return of Hamada al-Banna alive has shocked the Palestinian enclave.
Believing he had been killed in Israel’s genocidal warfare that started in 2023, al-Banna’s household held a wake for him almost a yr in the past.
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His story underscores the struggling of thousands of families who nonetheless await the return of their family members – or any details about them.
The Ministry of Well being in Gaza says it has acquired almost 3,500 stories of missing people whereas rights teams, together with Gaza-based Al-Dameer, estimated the variety of lacking to be 9,500.
Frantic search and a blast
Al-Banna’s nightmare started throughout a determined journey to seek out assist for his household close to the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza, the place he was separated from his brother Adham Yasser al-Banna within the monumental crowds. Adham was in the end fatally shot by the Israeli military.
“I used to be going residence carrying a bag of flour. I used to be holding it, carrying it again, comfortable that I had managed to get it,” he mentioned. “Then, all of a sudden, somebody referred to as me and mentioned, ‘Your brother has been killed.’”
Al-Banna had misplaced one other brother, Amjad, solely a month earlier. He refused to imagine he had suffered one other loss. However after the caller swore it was true, he dropped the bag of flour and rushed to seek for his sibling.
“Out of the blue, there was one other large explosion,” he mentioned. “I used to be wounded in my legs, my fingers, my chest and stomach. My complete physique was injured.”
Al-Banna misplaced consciousness and awakened two months later from a coma at Israel’s Soroka Medical Heart in Beersheba. He spent six months there, receiving therapy earlier than being transferred to an Israeli jail, the place he was held in solitary confinement for 4 months.
“After all, I noticed torture and struggling. Regardless of how a lot I let you know, I received’t have the ability to describe what I went by means of,” he mentioned. “For me, dying felt higher than remaining underneath the torture and struggling I used to be witnessing.”
‘Are you making enjoyable of me?’
After a yr in Israeli captivity, al-Banna was lastly launched about two weeks in the past. Throughout his absence, his fiancee, Reem Jadallah, by no means stopped looking for him, holding on to the opportunity of his survival regardless of all indications pointing to his dying. She bought her gold jewelry to rent a lawyer to trace his case after failing to acquire official data concerning his whereabouts.
After six months of looking, the lawyer knowledgeable the household that al-Banna had been killed. Plunged into grief, the household held a three-day wake about two months earlier than his eventual launch.
After he was freed, al-Banna made his first cellphone name to his father.
“I mentioned, ‘Dad, it’s Hamada.’ He replied, ‘Who’s Hamada? My son was killed. We held a three-day mourning ceremony for him,’” al-Banna advised Al Jazeera.
“I began crying and stored telling him, ‘It’s Hamada.’ He mentioned, ‘Are you telling me you’re alive? My son was killed. Are you making enjoyable of me?’”
Al-Banna referred to as once more, this time instructing his father to ship a automobile to the port as a result of he was arriving with the Crimson Cross.
When he lastly walked by means of the door of his household’s residence, his mom fainted in his arms.
“Even now, on daily basis, she appears to be like at me and says she will be able to’t imagine I’m right here. She tells me, ‘My son, we held a mourning ceremony for you. We had misplaced hope of ever seeing you once more, identical to your brothers who have been killed,’” he mentioned.
As he settles again into his residence, the trauma of Israeli prisons continues to hang-out him.
“Once I sleep, I dream that I’m nonetheless in jail. Daily, I pull shrapnel out of my physique. My leg hurts, and so do my testicles, my coronary heart, all the things,” he mentioned.
“Sure, I’m free now, however I’m not the individual I was.”
‘They miss him’
Al-Banna could have returned residence, however hundreds of different Palestinian households stay trapped between hopes of their lacking family members being alive and worry that they’re lifeless.
Amongst them is the household of Nafez Abed.
“Ready for the destiny of a prisoner is extra merciless than receiving the information of martyrdom,” Abed’s mom, Aziza Abed, mentioned, explaining that the household stays suspended between prospects with none reassuring data to finish their relentless doubt.
For his spouse, Shaimaa Jundiya, and their 4 kids, Abed’s absence has left a gap that she mentioned is unimaginable to fill. She mentioned they miss him within the smallest particulars of their each day lives, including that their daughter continually prays for his secure return, wanting with sorrow at each father carrying his baby on the street.
In the meantime, in Gaza’s public squares, the households of the lacking organise sit-ins, holding photos of their family members and demanding an official disclosure of their fates.
Abdullah Qandil, director of the Waed Affiliation for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners, mentioned hundreds of households have appealed to worldwide organisations to stress Israel into offering details about Gaza’s lacking.
Qandil mentioned the absence of data “exacerbates the psychological and humanitarian struggling” of the households compelled to dwell between hope and worry.
