Gaza Metropolis, Gaza Strip – With exhausted steps and eyes stuffed with tears, Hanaa al-Mabhuh strikes between the corridor displaying images of our bodies and the morgue at al-Shifa Hospital in a grim seek for any hint of her lacking son.
The 56-year-old mom wipes away tears with the again of her hand and stares on the decomposed faces on the display screen, torn between the will to seek out out what occurred to her youngest little one, whereas on the similar time fearing he may be among the many lifeless handed over by Israel beneath a US-brokered ceasefire deal.
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1000’s of Palestinians from Gaza have been searching for data on family members who went lacking for the reason that battle started after the lethal October 7, 2023 raid by Hamas.
Pushed by her want for closure, Hanaa returns to scan the photographs on the screens yet another time.
“This boy is a chunk of me,” Hanaa tells Al Jazeera, referring to 18-year-old Omar, who disappeared together with certainly one of his cousins, Alaa, after they went to examine the ruins of their dwelling in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza final June. Omar, a highschool scholar, was the youngest amongst his seven siblings.
“Each little one is valuable to his household, however my son is part of me,” she provides, tears streaming down her cheeks as she walks towards the morgue.
The household contacted the Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross (ICRC) and a number of other human rights organisations to attempt to discover out what occurred to Omar and his cousin, however to no avail.
Hanaa says the wait has been heartbreaking.
“We have no idea whether or not they’re prisoners, or whether or not they [the Israelis] killed them and took their our bodies or detained their our bodies together with these our bodies they launch in batches.”
“We’re operating as if in a mirage and we have no idea something,” says Hanaa, falling silent as if making an attempt to catch her breath.
Countless search
Since Israel started returning Palestinian our bodies to Gaza via the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, Hanaa has change into certainly one of a whole lot of members of the family transferring between hospitals and reception factors searching for any clues to the destiny of their family members.
The newest batch of our bodies got here on February 4. Gaza’s Well being Ministry mentioned 54 our bodies and 66 bins containing human stays, launched by Israel by way of the ICRC, had been acquired.
The stays arrived at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza Metropolis, the place medical and technical groups started preliminary examinations and documentation earlier than presenting them to households for potential identification.
Human rights organisations say handovers happen via the Crimson Cross in accordance with worldwide guidelines, however these procedures don’t all the time embody detailed documentation or the circumstances of dying, growing the burden on Gaza authorities to categorise our bodies and try identification amid restricted capability to conduct DNA testing.
Because the newest handover, Hanaa has gone to the hospital a number of instances to assessment lists and pictures of the our bodies.
“I’ve not left anywhere with out going to it. I even went to Khan Younis within the south of the Strip to examine the photographs,” she says.
The our bodies have been returned beneath the United States-brokered October 2025 truce settlement between Israel and Hamas, which stipulated that the stays of 15 Palestinians could be exchanged for the our bodies of each Israeli held in Gaza.
As of final month, Israeli authorities proceed to carry the our bodies of greater than 770 Palestinians in what is called the “cemeteries of numbers and morgues“, in keeping with the Nationwide Marketing campaign for the Restoration of Martyrs’ Our bodies and Disclosing the Destiny of the Lacking.
Hanaa’s struggling doesn’t cease at reviewing Palestinian our bodies. She additionally checks the lists of prisoners launched by Israel now and again, contacting the ICRC to attempt to affirm if her son’s identify seems.
“By God, the Crimson Cross has memorised me and my voice from how a lot I name and ask. They inform me: ‘Sister, aren’t you the one who referred to as final time?’ I inform him: ‘Sure, my brother. Forgive me, it isn’t in my palms.’ He sympathises with me,” she says.
Regardless of the gruelling effort, there may be nonetheless no decisive reply about her son’s destiny.
“My coronary heart as a mom needs that my son is alive. However I put together myself for the worst potentialities, and even this psychological preparation has introduced no end result,” Hanaa says.
‘Why do they go away us misplaced?’
Hanaa says the toughest half shouldn’t be solely the loss, however the state of confusion and disorientation she lives via, together with a whole lot of members of different households nonetheless looking for their relations.
“Why do they go away us misplaced like this? We don’t know the place they went or what their destiny is,” she says.
One other grim side is witnessing the “pitiful situation” wherein the our bodies are returned by Israel’s navy. “All of the options are utterly buried, and I can not even distinguish my son’s options.”
Hanaa says she believes the mutilation is “deliberate” to extend the ache of Palestinian households. “It’s as in the event that they need to go away us in grief for a lifetime … to mourn our kids with out finish,” she says, tears unceasing.
“My son was within the prime of his youth, like a flower, when he was misplaced. He was making ready to take a seat for his highschool exams together with his cousin. What did they do to vanish like this and for us to not know their destiny till now?”
Because the battle started in October 2023, the fate of bodies held by Israel has emerged as a central humanitarian and authorized subject within the battle. Israel doesn’t publish a unified listing of named our bodies it holds.
In accordance with a press release by the Crimson Cross, it has “facilitated the switch of 360 Palestinian our bodies to Gaza since October 2023”, supported the handover of 195 Israeli captives, together with 35 deceased, and the return of three,472 Palestinian prisoners alive.
Solely 99 returned Palestinian our bodies have been definitively recognized, in keeping with the Well being Ministry. The remaining stay unidentified or are nonetheless present process identification procedures.
The ministry mentioned some corpses present gunshot wounds to the pinnacle and chest, shrapnel accidents, fractures to the cranium and limbs, along with superior decomposition – significantly complicating forensic identification.
Attraction for worldwide assist
Hanaa referred to as on worldwide organisations to intervene to help grieving households corresponding to hers to find out the destiny of their kids.
“We can not settle down or stabilise psychologically or socially. We’re beneath huge psychological strain,” she says.
“They plowed the earth utterly and exhumed graves looking for Israeli our bodies with tools and exams. However our kids, nobody asks about them. By what logic does this occur?”
At Gaza’s forensic division, a small staff handles this heavy burden beneath situations that exclude instruments of “definitive affirmation”, leaving workers and households in a large area of doubt.
Ahmed Abu Taha, head of the our bodies and lacking individuals information on the Well being Ministry, tells Al Jazeera that 120 corpses just lately arrived in Gaza by way of the ICRC. Some got here full, whereas others have been merely bone fragments and different human stays.
Out of the 120, solely two our bodies have been recognized, and even these weren’t scientifically conclusive.
“Confirmatory” exams corresponding to DNA evaluation, forensic anthropology, and forensic odontology are unavailable in Gaza’s destroyed healthcare system, that means solely “presumptive” testing could be performed, which is much less exact, says Abu Taha.
“The steps start with presumptive testing – distinguishing marks, garments, whether or not male or feminine, estimating age, figuring out distinguishing options corresponding to amputations or tattoos… Then you definately transfer to confirmatory testing. However sadly, in Gaza we solely have presumptive testing.”
This sort of testing “is vulnerable to many errors” together with misidentification, he provides.
When error turns into tragedy
Essentially the most painful side, Abu Taha says, is the influence an “error” has on households ready desperately to seek out the physique of a lacking little one. Repeated misidentifications have been recorded, inflicting shock and reopening wounds for a lot of Palestinians.
Abu Taha recounts one story that deeply affected him and illustrates the psychological and emotional injury inflicted on households amid the absence of correct DNA exams.
“On one event, members of a household got here and recognized a physique as their son. They introduced proof that carefully matched the physique. The forensic staff examined it and located similarities, and certainly the physique was handed over to that household.”
Grieving relations accomplished the formal procedures for receiving the physique, obtained a dying certificates, then proceeded with funeral rites and burial. They introduced a wake to obtain mourners.
However a shock got here when, solely two days after the burial, one other household introduced extra conclusive proof that confirmed the deceased particular person belonged to them.
Abu Taha says the harrowing incident has been repeated inside Gaza’s beleaguered hospitals.
He’s calling for worldwide intervention to strain Israel to permit the entry of identification tools and DNA testing instruments as an moral and humanitarian matter to finish the struggling of households struggling to determine family members and provides them a correct burial.
“The file of the our bodies shouldn’t be merely a numerical subject,” Abu Taha says.
