TEHRAN: Thousands of families are still searching for missing loved ones across the Gaza Strip, a tragic reality that came into sharp focus on Sunday, as the world observed the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza remain missing, leaving their families without answers about their fate. Some 200 of them are children. Among them is nine-year-old Jalal Ahmed Al-Bursh. He disappeared after leaving his family's tent to play near the Yellow Line in northern Gaza.
"We searched everywhere for my son, hospitals, police stations and all across the city. When we began losing hope, we turned to the Red Cross. My son has now been missing for 77 days," said Saja Al-Bursh, mother of the missing child.
According to his family, witnesses saw Jalal crossing the Yellow Line into an area under Israeli military control. Since then, they have received no information about his fate.
"I appealed to Israeli human rights organizations, including B'Tselem, to pressure Israel to reveal my son Jalal's fate. But so far, the Israeli military has not provided any information. The hardest thing we face is not knowing," said Jalal Al-Bursh, the father.
For families of the missing, the uncertainty can last for months, with few ways to determine where their loved ones are or what happened to them.
"Not knowing the fate of their loved ones is a severe humanitarian ordeal. Thousands of families in Gaza are still waiting to learn what happened to their missing relatives, and this continuing situation places an even heavier burden on them," said Samir Al-Mana'ama, a human rights lawyer at the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.
The scale of destruction across Gaza, along with Israel's expansion of the restricted Yellow Line area, has made the search for the missing even more difficult. For families in Gaza without closure, it's hard if not impossible to move on.
