When the world looks at Gaza, headlines often focus on the numbers of the dead. Yet behind those figures are thousands who are still unaccounted for — the missing. Their absence haunts families, leaving them trapped in unbearable uncertainty. In his testimony and work, researcher and advocate Ghazi Al Majdalawi, head of the Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, brings forward the silent crisis that rarely reaches the front page: the Gaza Stories of disappearance.

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The Tragedy of the Missing

Gaza is not only laying its martyrs to rest, it is also caught in an endless search for those who have simply vanished — swallowed by bombardments, swept away in mass arrests, or lost when entire neighborhoods were erased in seconds. Families move from hospitals to morgues to the shattered remains of their streets, clutching worn photographs and repeating the same desperate question: “Have you seen my son? My daughter? My father?”

The scale defies comprehension. The missing are counted in the thousands, and with every fragile ceasefire the number refuses to stand still. Each renewed assault, each collapsed neighborhood, adds more names to the list no family ever wants to see. What began as thousands has only grown heavier, stretching across Gaza like a shadow that never lifts. For the families left behind, the waiting cuts deeper than mourning — because mourning has an end, but uncertainty does not. A mother holds tight to a torn piece of her child’s clothing. A father waits outside the ruins of a prison. And children whisper questions into the air, questions no one around them can answer.

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Gaza Stories of Disappearance and Mass Graves

Among the darkest Gaza Stories are those of suspected mass graves. Survivors recall trucks carrying away the dead, shallow pits hurriedly covered, and relatives vanishing after detention. In hospitals like Al-Shifa and Nasser, entire groups of detainees disappeared when Israeli forces stormed the complexes.

Ghazi recounts the case of his own cousin, Yousef Moner Al Majdalawi, who vanished in December 2024 while trying to leave Jabalia camp to Gaza City. Other testimonies speak of children separated from their parents during displacement, or a young girl last seen alive at Al-Shifa Hospital before disappearing without trace.

These accounts echo patterns from other conflicts — Bosnia, Chile, Argentina — where systematic disappearance was later proven as a crime against humanity. Gaza’s missing are not isolated tragedies; they form a growing body of evidence.

Gaza Stories-Families of the Missing

For the families, absence is a living wound. Ghazi himself lost more than 60 relatives when his family homes were bombed in Jabalia, many still under rubble.

That night, Nabil watched his home crumble into rubble. He knew his mother was beneath it, and he refused to leave her there. What he pulled out was not whole, but he refused to leave her nameless under the ruins. “She deserves a grave,” he whispered. “She deserves to rest in the earth.”
Other families carry wounds that echo the same pain. Parents who went out simply to find bread never returned. Children still stand at the doorway, waiting for footsteps that will never come. They listen for familiar voices, but the silence lingers like a wall.
Inside the homes, absence speaks louder than words. An empty chair at the table. A bed that has not been touched. Because grief, at least, has an ending. Disappearance leaves nothing but an open wound that never heals.

These are not only private sorrows but public testimony — Gaza Stories that demand recognition on the world stage.

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Documenting Gaza Stories as a Path to Justice

The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared was set up in February 2025 to gather these stories. Families can register their loved ones through an online platform, since there are no safe offices left standing, no labs for DNA testing, and no machines to dig through the ruins. Instead, the center leans on survivors who carry testimonies, on neighbors who saw what happened, and on former prisoners who say they witnessed others still alive behind bars.

Under international law, the act of making people vanish is not just a tragedy — it is defined as a crime against humanity. Yet until now, little serious movement has come from international institutions. Ghazi stresses that documenting Gaza Stories is not only about memory — it is about accountability, whether through war crimes charges, crimes against humanity, or genocide cases.

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Gaza: From Absence to Testimony

The story of the missing in Gaza is not one of statistics, but of faces erased in the fog of war. Journalists like Haitham Abdel Wahid and Nidal Al-Wahida vanished while reporting. Medical staff were arrested and classified as “unlawful combatants.” Children disappeared along so-called safe corridors.

Every missing person is a question the world must answer. Without recognition, the cycle of erasure continues — families left in silence, perpetrators walking free. With recognition, Gaza Stories transform absence into testimony and testimony into truth.

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Justice for the Missing

Justice means more than trials and verdicts — it means bringing closure to families, naming the missing, and exposing the crimes that tried to bury the truth. Until that happens, Gaza’s families will continue to ask the same question, again and again:

Ghazi’s testimony reflects not only his personal tragedy but also the collective suffering of thousands of families in Gaza who continue to search for their missing and forcibly disappeared. Behind every figure lies a human story, a face, and a life suspended between hope and loss. Hear it directly from Ghazi Al Majdalawi.

Published By Besa Witness Eye