Hassan Took a Bike Ride. Now He's One of the Thousands Missing in Gaza

In the early greeting dark, Abeer Skaik turned to her husband, Ali Al-Qatta, and said that contiguous would beryllium the time they would find their son. Ali nodded successful silence, and she handed him the stack of flyers. Each bore a photograph of 16-year-old Hassan smiling widely, his shoulders loose, wearing a plain reddish T-shirt. He is looking straight astatine the camera, unguarded. On apical of the page, successful ample letters, Abeer had written a azygous connection successful bold reddish ink: Munashada!—an appeal.

Abeer watched arsenic Ali stepped into a car with a fewer adjacent friends and drove away. They started the 30-kilometer travel south, from al-Tuffah, eastbound of Gaza City, to the European Hospital successful Khan Younis. They had heard that a radical of radical detained by Israel, including children, would beryllium released there.

The gross was already crowded. Families stood enarthrosis to shoulder, wrapped successful blankets against the cold, clutching photographs and ID cards. Ali distributed the flyers among his friends. When the buses of released detainees arrived, helium and the others moved dilatory done the constrictive gaps betwixt clusters of people. Some of those who had conscionable been released were being pulled into embraces. Ali waited astatine the borderline of each reunion. “Have you seen my son?” helium asked. One aft another, radical shook their heads. The crowds thinned. It was 2 americium by the clip Ali returned. Abeer watched her hubby spot the photographs connected the table. They stood and looked astatine each different without speaking, Ali’s eyes distant arsenic if helium was entering idiosyncratic else’s house. It had been 10 months since they had past been with their son.

Before the October 7 attacks, earlier a UN committee and a big of Palestinian and planetary rights groups determined that Israel is committing a genocide successful Gaza, Abeer’s beingness had been organized astir Hassan’s routines. He woke astatine the aforesaid hr each morning, ate the aforesaid foods successful the aforesaid order, needed the location cleaned successful a circumstantial way—the level washed, the array wiped aft each meal. When helium was 11 months old, Hassan’s parents saw that helium wasn’t capable to crawl oregon beryllium and that helium didn’t babble the mode his sister had astatine that age. After a agelong bid of aesculapian assessments, Hassan, past 5, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Abeer says Israel had denied the family’s petition to get attraction for Hassan extracurricular Gaza. So Abeer started teaching herself therapy techniques, however to physique behavioral routines, however to negociate his sensory overload. Together, she and her husband, Ali, structured Hassan’s days astir information and repetition, and they learned however to capable their location with joy. Hassan laughed erstwhile his begetter splashed him successful the bath conscionable the mode helium demanded, showed an endless appetite for turning the pages of magazines and poring done photos successful edifice menus, loved to beryllium connected brushed pillows with his mother. “I utilized to accidental I had 4 eyes,” Abeer says. “Mine and his. Mine ne'er slept.”

The bombs were the archetypal happening to interruption Hassan. Every detonation made the 16-year-old property a shaking manus to his thorax and whisper, “Mama, my bosom is scared.” Displacement fractured him again. He screamed each of the 4 times they had to evacuate. “Why americium I leaving my home? I don’t privation to permission home. I privation my bed,” helium said. Hassan, who could not tolerate feeling unwashed adjacent for a fewer hours, went 10 afloat days without showering. One time portion they were sheltering astatine a relative’s home, helium carried a tiny vessel of water, followed his parent around, and begged for a shower.

By April 2024, scarcity had entered each portion of regular life. Starvation deepened arsenic Israel chopped disconnected nutrient supplies. Clean h2o was hard to find. Abeer mislaid astir 40 pounds. Days earlier Hassan disappeared, helium snapped astatine his parent implicit what small nutrient remained—only a adust concoction they called bread, made of mixed seeds that were erstwhile sold arsenic carnal feed, which near it with a repulsive smell. He did not recognize wherefore determination was nary existent bread, nary rice, nary milk, nary meat. Hassan stared astatine what he’d been given, pushed it away, and shouted, “What are you feeding me?” In a infinitesimal of axenic overwhelm, helium knocked the array connected its broadside and ran from the house.

Hassan’s disorder grew, until finally, 1 afternoon, helium took his bicycle and pushed it done the doorway. He had learned to thrust agelong earlier the war, practicing again and again on the aforesaid abbreviated agelong of thoroughfare beneath their building. As helium grew older, the bicycle became portion of his routine. Neighbors were utilized to seeing him, looping the aforesaid corners, stopping successful the aforesaid places, moving done the vicinity successful a mode that felt harmless and acquainted to him.

After Hassan rode away, Abeer expected him backmost wrong minutes, arsenic usual. But past 10 minutes passed, and 30. The airy began to slice arsenic evening approached. Ali near to hunt the adjacent streets. Abeer remained inside, her 4 different children successful the home, moving betwixt the doorway and the window, her telephone successful her manus calling neighbors and relatives. Each clip footsteps passed outside, she jumped up to look.

By night, determination was nary electricity, nary light, and the thoroughfare emptied successful anticipation of dense bombardment. Neighbors told Abeer they had not seen Hassan. No 1 remembered a lad riding past. After dark, her hubby returned briefly, past went retired again, pursuing what remained of the routes Hassan ever took—the constrictive alley beside the building, the backmost thoroughfare that avoided postulation and noise. Before the war, Hassan could determination done Gaza’s streets without hesitation. He had carried the metropolis successful his head—the representation that led him to relatives’ homes, to tiny shops, to acquainted cafés, to the corners and shortcuts that anchored his routine. But these were nary longer the streets helium knew. Entire neighborhoods had been leveled. Buildings had fallen into the road. And Gaza had been divided successful 2 by an Israeli checkpoint connected al-Rashid Street, intersecting with a militarized enactment dividing northbound and south.

“It was arsenic if the crushed swallowed him,” Abeer says.

What followed was little an probe than a desperate, repetitive circuit—similar to the ones that thousands of Gazan families present determination through. It is simply a shared condition, this extremist uncertainty, successful which the destiny of missing radical tin seldom beryllium resolved by immoderate accessible authority. Some of Gaza’s missing were taken from their homes during subject raids, others were past seen astatine checkpoints oregon approaching assistance organisation sites, oregon fundamentally taken to beryllium utilized arsenic quality shields by Israeli forces (a signifier that the Israel Defense Forces says it expressly prohibits). Some person vanished into informal Israeli detention sites that output astir nary accusation connected who is alive, dead, oregon successful custody. Others person been efficaciously “evaporated” by extreme-heat munitions, leaving nary recoverable bodies. Still others were buried instantly by neighbors to support them from the dogs, without immoderate record. Many ne'er scope a morgue, ne'er walk done a infirmary register. Their names look connected nary casualty lists, situation databases, oregon decease registries. They are simply gone.

This is not immoderate unavoidable effect of war. In astir modern conflicts, unidentified bodies are yet linked to families done forensic recognition systems. This process tin instrumentality years and is often incomplete, but planetary systems beryllium to import oregon entree the indispensable technologies. Gaza, though, has been a benignant of forensic godforsaken for years now. It is simply a territory that has been systematically denied the tools required to sanction its dead.

When Israel imposed a blockade connected Gaza opening successful 2007, it soon placed those tools—for toxicology testing, familial analysis, DNA testing, and adjacent fingerprint and biometric scanners—on a database of “dual use” items, which the authorities says tin besides beryllium utilized for subject purposes. There is small transparency successful this realm. An authoritative database of blocked goods utilized to beryllium disposable online, but archived versions person not been updated since 2020, and it’s been taxable to change. In summation to circumstantial items, Israel bars full categories of things, similar “communications equipment". Now, successful this clip of unparalleled death, the unidentified dormant cannot beryllium linked done DNA to the living. The Israeli authorities has besides hobbled the mechanisms erstwhile meant to let families to place relatives held successful detention, and has barred the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from accessing prisoners, successful usurpation of the Geneva Convention. Meanwhile, full swaths of Gaza—where countless bodies beryllium nether the rubble oregon successful wide graves—are controlled by Israel and are off-limits for Palestinian travel. Where Gazan authorities person interred the dead, bodies are often buried earlier due biologic samples person been taken, sometimes without immoderate existent records astatine all.

In each this chaos, amid the illness of authoritative documentation systems, nary -single instauration tin authoritatively accidental however galore radical are missing successful Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry places its estimation astatine much than 9,500. The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared says its tract estimates bespeak astir 9,000. The ICRC says it has received astir 11,500 tracing requests for missing radical successful Gaza and that astir fractional of those cases stay unresolved. Each of these organizations stress that their figures whitethorn beryllium incomplete. In January, the Institute for Social and Economic Progress, a Palestinian probe group, conducted an exclusive canvass crossed Gaza to measure the situation of the missing. Using the results, ISEP’s champion estimation is that determination could beryllium 14,000 to 15,000 radical inactive missing successful Gaza retired of a full colonisation of astir 2 million.

For the loved ones of the missing, this authorities of wide irresolution tin magnitude to a lived acquisition of profound, frenetic, risky restlessness. Even with regular bombings, Abeer and her hubby determination done rubble, shelters, hospitals, and ruins. They person pushed done crowds of displaced families, questioning anyone who mightiness person seen a teenage lad connected a bicycle. They person contacted everyone they can. “We searched for him everywhere,” Abeer says. “We posted connected societal media and sent his photograph to societal media influencers. We told the quality channels. We distributed posters.” They person followed each rumor, each faint possibility, looking for immoderate witnesses. “But nothing,” Abeer says. “There is nary hint of him.”

Nearly 2 years aft Hassan disappeared, Abeer has received nary authoritative determination of his fate. Hassan is not confirmed dead. He is not confirmed alive. He is not officially acknowledged arsenic detained. He exists lone successful fragments: a photograph, an aged note, the representation of a bicycle disappearing down the street. His sanction surfaces intermittently done informal channels, past vanishes again. Abeer does not picture grief immoderate more. She describes a benignant of purgatory. “This process destroys your mind,” she says. “It is paralysis.”

Days aft Hassan disappeared, his father, Ali, went to hunt for him astatine Al-Shifa hospital. Families crowded the entrances, waiting their crook to look for loved ones. The corridors were lined with bodies wrapped successful blankets oregon plastic. Refrigerators were full. Some corpses laic successful ice-cream freezers. The aerial was dense with disinfectant and decay; the floors slick with water, blood, and residue from hurried washings.

Some searchers cried. Others stood rigid, scanning rows of bodies successful silence. There was nary privacy, nary order—only urgency. When unit were overwhelmed, men lifted coverings themselves, exposing limbs, torsos, faces burned oregon crushed beyond recognition. Families searched for birthmarks, scars, teeth, fragments of clothing. Some were pulled distant mid-glance by relatives who decided they should not spot more.

Ali moved done the space. He did not linger. He looked, registered what helium could, and moved on. He went location and broke down for the archetypal clip since he’d been married. “The upland became 2 mountains upon me,” says Abeer. “I was acrophobic to outcry successful beforehand of Ali, acrophobic helium would illness successful my arms—and that I would suffer some my lad and his father.”

The infirmary that undid Ali is the workplace wherever Khalil Hamada spends his days. Hamada, 53, has headed Gaza’s forensic medicine section retired of Al-Shifa Hospital since 2022. When I archetypal spoke to him, helium was surviving successful a structure aft being displaced from his location successful the Al-Jalaa neighborhood, westbound of Gaza City. “My bosom collapses each day,” helium told maine erstwhile we talked successful February. “People travel to america looking for their loved ones. Thousands of families privation lone 1 thing—to hide with dignity, to hide a father, a mother, a brother, to person a sanction and a spot to grieve. And I cannot assistance them.”

War has agelong forced societies to invent ways of naming the dead. Modern forensic recognition itself grew retired of conflict: 1 of its earliest recorded uses dates to 1776, erstwhile Paul Revere identified a fallen worker by the distinctive mendacious teeth helium had made for him. In the wars that followed, the aforesaid basal question—who is this person?—drove the dependable enlargement of forensic science, from dental records and fingerprints to DNA and biometric databases.

In Gaza, that humanities advancement has been denied. Bodies travel to Hamada successful conditions that would marque adjacent technological investigation difficult—burned beyond recognition, torn isolated by collapsing buildings, recovered aft days oregon weeks successful makeshift and wide graves, agelong aft ocular certainty had disappeared. But successful Gaza, recognition inactive depends astir wholly connected what the oculus tin recognize.

In a functioning system, Hamada explained, erstwhile other, easier methods fail, biologic samples would beryllium processed utilizing familial analyzers and examination software, past matched against a database of notation samples from families, fingerprint and dental records, and nationalist civilian registries. This is the modular process described by the International Commission connected Missing Persons. Each conflict, from Guatemala to Ukraine and beyond, has its ain unsocial circumstances erstwhile it comes to the usage of forensic technology. Syria, for instance, lone precocious resumed DNA investigation to place bodies from its decade-plus civilian warfare due to the fact that sanctions antecedently barred it from importing the technology. But Israel, for decades, has efficaciously prevented the Ministry of Health successful Gaza from establishing a forensic lab, classifying astir each of the tools indispensable to bash truthful arsenic perchance dangerous.

“For years, we appealed to the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross for forensic equipment,” Hamada said. “Nothing was allowed in.”

In January 2024, during a little truce, an planetary NGO brought a forensic specializer from Oslo University to Gaza. That adept trained 10 Palestinian doctors successful exigency mass-fatality documentation and evidence—preservation techniques adapted to utmost low-resource conditions. The programme leaders yet chose 4 to proceed successful the specialization, bringing the fig of forensically trained doctors successful Gaza to seven. But they inactive person nary laboratories. “We person doctors, but we don’t person machines,” Hamada says. “We photograph and grounds immoderate we can. But successful astir cases, it is not enough.”

In the lack of due equipment, Hamada’s squad conducts a rudimentary postmortem review—consisting of a snapshot with a integer camera, a hand-filled signifier ​​recording a lawsuit fig and date, an estimated property and tallness erstwhile possible, and notes connected immoderate disposable injuries, scars, surgical marks, dental features, and hair, on with an inventory of covering and a database of idiosyncratic belongings. During the archiving process, which includes making carnal binders arsenic good arsenic physics files, the squad besides collects biologic samples—such arsenic teeth oregon bony fragments—so they tin beryllium preserved, since determination are not capable morgues to store the bodies.

Despite the efforts of Hamada and his colleagues, helium estimates that lone a fewer 100 unidentified bodies person been formally archived, a tiny fraction of the total. And nether existent conditions, adjacent these cases whitethorn pb nowhere. “Gaza has nary biometric database—no fingerprints, nary dental records, nary DNA profiles,” Hamada said. “Even if we had machines, we would person thing to comparison against.”

During the war, a caller stopgap strategy for Gazan burials has emerged. A committee composed of representatives from the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and the Palestinian Civil Defense authorizes the burial of remains successful numbered graves, digitally mapped successful accordance with planetary guidelines and with immoderate assistance from ICRC officials. This is truthful that, successful the future, if anyone recognizes a idiosyncratic belonging, authorities volition cognize wherever the assemblage is buried. If DNA investigating materials are aboriginal allowed into Gaza, they volition beryllium capable to behaviour due forensic testing. “We support each record,” Hamada said. “Because maybe, erstwhile the warfare ends and the laboratories return, idiosyncratic volition admit their loved one.”

International law, says Mayy El Sheikh, a spokesperson from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is wide connected the taxable of identification. “Israel has an work to instrumentality each feasible measures to relationship for missing persons and to supply families with immoderate disposable accusation connected the destiny and whereabouts of missing relatives,” she says.

“The combined effect of Israel’s obstruction of the introduction of indispensable instrumentality and trained personnel, its nonaccomplishment to retrieve quality remains and to dainty them with respect and dignity, the continued withholding of bodies, and its signifier of enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention is foreseeable and preventable: agony for thousands of Palestinian families deprived of their close to larn the fates of their loved ones and their close to hide their dormant successful accordance with their customs and beliefs,” says El Sheikh. “It is cruel, inhumane, and flies successful the look of planetary law.”

In effect to a elaborate database of questions, the Israeli subject says it “has operated and continues to run successful accordance with planetary instrumentality passim the conflict, taking feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian property,” and referred WIRED to the Israeli Prison Services for remark connected detentions. The Prison Services did not respond to a petition for comment.

Over the people of October and November 2025, Israel returned 315 bodies to Gaza aft a ceasefire. They arrived without names oregon paperwork—only remains. “The bodies get void of information,” says Hamada. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 182 of these bodies were buried unnamed. Ultimately, 91 were identified, astir ever due to the fact that relatives recognized a scar, a tooth, oregon the outline of a hand.

Out successful the streets, too, oregon successful the ruins of bombed buildings, survivors place scattered remains done a portion of clothing, a ring, the look of someone’s hair.

This is however I retrieve my ain experience. On November 21, 2023, a azygous onslaught connected a gathering successful Shuja’iyya, a vicinity eastbound of Gaza City, killed much than 70 people, astir of them distant relatives of mine. What remained were not bodies but fragments—burned, crushed, and mixed beyond recognition. We laid the remains retired successful rows and moved betwixt them slowly, making decisions nary household should person to make. When ocular recognition failed, we relied connected context: Who had been wrong the house, who had not been seen since the explosion, who was known to beryllium successful which room. When adjacent that was insufficient, we laid blankets retired connected the crushed and decided that each 1 would correspond a household. If a household of 5 was unaccounted for, we placed the remains of what we guessed could beryllium 5 radical connected apical of 1 blanket. In that way, for instance, we accounted for a household of 2 parents and their 3 children.

Family aft household successful Gaza has done the same. In different cases, dealing intimately with the dormant simply falls to whoever is nearby. Mohammed Shehta Dremly, 34, recalls sheltering for days with his household and dozens of others successful adjacent quarters arsenic bombs rained down astir him. On the seventh night, flares lit the sky, drones hovered overhead, and fume bombs filled the street. A ammunition deed their building; different struck the location adjacent door, wherever recently displaced families were sheltering. Around evening supplication time, they heard a strike, followed by screams. No 1 could spell outside. Windows shattered, doors splintered. “I didn’t deliberation we would spot the morning,” helium said.

At dawn, Dremly, his uncle, and a neighbour went outside. The location adjacent doorway had collapsed. More than 15 radical wrong had been killed. The wounded were evacuated by donkey cart, due to the fact that nary ambulance could scope the site. As Dremly walked done the rubble, helium encountered assemblage parts scattered crossed the road.

“I recovered a man’s leg, separated from the body,” helium said. “Then a head. Then a thigh. Then an arm.”

There were nary rescuers, nary relatives, nary officials. The 3 men decided to hide the remains truthful dogs would not devour them. Dremly dug a pit for astir an hour. The men collected fragments from astatine slightest 3 bodies—mixed and unidentifiable. As they worked, an Israeli drone hovered overhead. He lifted portion of a limb toward it, hoping to amusement what they were doing, acrophobic they would beryllium shot. The 3 men covered the pit and fled arsenic shelling resumed. When Dremly returned days later, dogs had dug up the grave. He buried the remains again. He inactive doesn’t cognize who they were.

Israel’s efforts to place its ain dormant are robust. In precocious January of this year, Israeli forces excavated dozens of Palestinian bodies from the Shuja’iyya vicinity and transferred them to laboratories successful Israel successful an effort to place a azygous Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, whom Hamas said it had been incapable to return. For Hamada, watching this unfold was unbearable. “The satellite is cruel. It is shameless,” helium says, his code abruptly accelerating. “It mourns the assemblage of 1 soldier, portion thousands of us—including bodies of children, of women …” He pauses, struggles to decorativeness the thought, past simply repeats: “Thousands of us.”

At the hospital, the household was presented with 3 severely burned parts. “I could not admit the body,” her begetter told journalists. Along with the remains, the infirmary besides gave them Bisan’s damaged ID, which they were told had been recovered alongside the remains. The household buried the remains and began mourning.

Then, implicit a twelvemonth later, connected August 17, 2025, Bisan’s brother, Mohammed Fayyad, posted connected societal media saying that the household had received reports that his sister was live and being held successful Israeli custody. A flurry of property sum followed, and the household waited, expecting to spot her again. The October 2025 ceasefire was declared. One radical of prisoners was released, past another. But Bisan was not among them. The household soon stopped speaking publically astir her case. If Bisan was being held successful detention, they told me, they feared that media attraction could harm her.

On January 18, her brother, Anan Fayyad, posted again. He said helium nary longer knew what was true. “If she was martyred, whitethorn God person mercy connected her,” helium wrote connected Facebook. “If she is successful detention, I inquire God to bring her backmost to america soon.”

Bisan’s household cannot cognize for definite whether the assemblage they buried 2 years agone was so hers. But neither could they beryllium definite that the soundlessness astir her detention meant overmuch of anything. Getting accusation connected Palestinians successful Israeli custody has ever been difficult. But since October 7, the strategy for uncovering Gazan detainees has go a maddening labyrinth that leaves families hanging connected to shards of accusation from those who person been released.

For decades earlier the war, the ICRC has maintained entree to Palestinians held by Israel, and an Israeli nonprofit called HaMoked operated a detainee-tracing hotline nether an statement with the Israeli military. That strategy functioned unevenly but predictably: HaMoked could taxable names and person a confirmation of detention and a location. Cases from Gaza were comparatively rare. The systems collapsed wholly successful October 2023, erstwhile Israel argued it had nary work to supply immoderate accusation astir Gaza detainees. The ICRC was wholly prohibited from visiting prisoners, and the entree HaMoked utilized to person was restricted. In the months and years that followed, thousands of Palestinians person been taken into Israeli custody—their fates often unknown.

The ICRC is inactive denied access. A new, constricted tracing mechanics that HaMoked tin usage was introduced successful May 2024, aft repeated High Court petitions. It requires families to nonstop a signed powerfulness of lawyer authorizing a lawyer oregon quality rights enactment to record a tracing request—a hard task amid connection blackouts, displacement, and constricted telephone and net entree successful Gaza.

Responses person been reduced to a little formula—either confirming detention oregon stating determination is “no indication” of an arrest—without mentation oregon supporting information. Since this caller strategy was introduced, HaMoked has traced 4,985 individuals. In 3,353 cases, Israel confirmed the idiosyncratic was detained. In 1,632 cases, authorities said determination was nary information.

Sometimes, radical suddenly reemerge live from Israeli custody aft months of concealed detention. In 1 case, successful precocious 2023, Israeli soldiers raided the location wherever a 35-year-old antheral named Ehab Diab was sheltering with his family. The household watched arsenic Diab was handcuffed, placed successful an armored subject vehicle, and driven off. Nine months aft helium disappeared, the household contacted an Israeli quality rights enactment called Gisha, which submitted a ceremonial enquiry to Israel’s Military Police asking wherever Diab was being held successful bid to put a lawyer’s visit. Less than an hr later, the subject replied: There was “no denotation of the apprehension oregon detention” of Diab—“no indication” of the abduction Diab’s household had witnessed with their ain eyes. More months, much paperwork, much stonewalling. Then, connected July 2, 2025—19 months aft the arrest—the authorities submitted a effect successful court. Diab, wrote the main of the confederate command, Lt. Col. Rabbi David Haimov, was “being held arsenic a corpse.”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has verified the deaths of 89 Palestinians—88 men and 1 boy—in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023. (Physicians for Human Rights has enactment the fig astatine 94 and says that its fig is apt an undercount.) Israeli authorities person reported further deaths without capable item for autarkic verification, the OHCHR says. The bureau besides documented astatine slightest 5 cases successful which Palestinians died successful custody soon aft being changeable by Israeli forces. The Israeli subject says that an “investigation is conducted for each decease of a detainee by the subject police.”

Abeer already knew, erstwhile her lad went missing, that Israeli forces had swept up thousands of Gazans, including children, into detention. In shelters and relatives’ homes, she heard stories similar those of Diab. She heard rumors astir children who had been taken and past released months later. They were children of Hassan’s age.

It took astir a twelvemonth aft Hassan disappeared for the archetypal circumstantial pb to scope Abeer. A telephone came from a section assemblage person who told the household helium had heard Hassan’s sanction mentioned among radical believed to beryllium live successful Israeli detention. The extremity went nowhere.

Abeer pulled connected each thread until she reached its end. To a big of offices and organizations, she sent the aforesaid details: Hassan’s afloat name, day of birth, individuality number, the vicinity helium near from, and the time helium disappeared. The replies she received were abbreviated and procedural. Rumors came from acquaintances and radical claiming to person information. One said helium was detained. Another that helium was dead. Another that helium was nether the rubble, oregon successful the south. “They archer you, ‘Forget him, ideate he’s been killed,’” Abeer says.

Hope returned done the aforesaid informal channels. In March 2025, a distant comparative told the household she’d heard that determination were autistic minors successful Israeli detention—and that Hassan was among them, alive. A comparative filmed the infinitesimal Abeer’s brother-in-law called with this news. In the video, Abeer is seen cooking erstwhile she answers the phone. Her dependable rises implicit the sizzle of the stove. “What’s happening? What’s happening? Please, don’t marque maine nervous,” she says, the tongs successful her manus hanging successful midair arsenic she appears to freeze. Abeer past abruptly collapses connected the room floor. “Oh God, ohio God, ohio God,” she cries, earlier a comparative rushes to clasp her.

Abeer contacted the ICRC and quality rights groups to spot if they could corroborate the tip. But cipher had immoderate grounds of Hassan.

What this uncertainty denies Abeer, and truthful galore others—orphans with missing parents, wives without husbands, fathers taking attraction of kids without mothers—isn’t conscionable bid of mind. Without documentation, assistance systems cannot relation and beingness remains suspended. Under the Gazan Ministry of Health’s system, a decease cannot beryllium registered without a assemblage unless 2 witnesses attest that they saw the assemblage oregon the burial. The regularisation assumes functioning hospitals, registries, and documentation.

In an effort to interruption the impasse, past November, authorities successful Gaza projected allowing decease certificates to beryllium issued for a idiosyncratic who has been missing for much than six months aft the October 2025 ceasefire, adjacent without an identified body. The thought was to assistance thousands unlock inheritance, guardianship, and entree to assistance. But the judicial authorization successful Ramallah instantly rejected it, reaffirming that, by law, a declaration of decease whitethorn beryllium issued lone aft 4 years of disappearance. Such a discrepancy would person meant the aforesaid idiosyncratic could extremity up listed arsenic dormant successful 1 strategy and live successful another.

Abeer and Ali are frozen. In the 2 years since their lad vanished, the satellite astir them has turned upside down. Most of the buildings successful their country were bombed, and astir everyone they knew fled. Their relatives begged them to permission the northbound of Gaza. But Abeer and Ali did not. They went backmost to their damaged home, due to the fact that it is the 1 spot Hassan mightiness cognize to instrumentality to, the 1 spot helium mightiness cognize the mode backmost to. Even earlier Hassan went missing, Abeer and Ali resisted moving southbound erstwhile relatives began evacuating, due to the fact that caller places unsettled him and disrupted the routines and rhythms Hassan had depended on. They did not privation to propulsion him acold from the streets helium knew.

“We saw decease galore times,” Abeer says. “The tanks arrived successful our street.” But her resoluteness was firm. “If you privation maine to permission this city,” she says, “bring maine my lad first. Put him successful my hands, and I volition go.”

What keeps Abeer awake immoderate nights is imagining what detention would bash to Hassan. “I can’t carnivore it,” she says. “My lad has ne'er been hit. Never. If soldiers are torturing him, however tin I live? I ideate them beating him, and I suffer control. I can’t ideate anyone raising a manus against him.”
On different nights she is kept up by the thought that helium is dead. A fewer weeks ago, a assemblage was recovered connected al-Rashid Street. A neighbour called Ali and asked him to come. He went. The assemblage was that of an older man. He had a beard. It could not person been Hassan.

Ali is exhausted by the cycle. “My hubby is much realistic than I am,” Abeer says. “He ever tells me, ‘Even if they accidental Hassan is alive, they’ll play with our hearts.’ And I cognize he’s right. Every clip we deliberation determination is news, they twist it, hold it, support america waiting. It feels similar they privation to pain our nerves—to support america surviving betwixt anticipation and despair.”

The strain has opened fissures betwixt them. Abeer reacts immediately. She follows each lead, adjacent erstwhile she already expects it to evaporate. Ali hesitates. He asks for details earlier letting idiosyncratic picture a body. Abeer believes her hubby has stopped believing their lad is alive. “They ne'er fto anyone travel backmost from there,” helium has said. Yet Ali searches anyway—already disappointed, already trying to harden himself. He adjacent walks to the borderline of Israel’s alleged “yellow line” buffer zone, wherever radical pass him helium could beryllium changeable if helium goes immoderate further. When helium tells Abeer a pb has failed, she feels thing taken from her. When she asks him to hold for confirmation, helium hears lone the prolongation of pain. They are negotiating however overmuch anticipation their household tin inactive afford.

On January 19, 2026, 8 detainees were released to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital successful Deir al-Balah. One of them was a 16-year-old child. Ali and Abeer recovered the sanction of the boy’s household connected societal media, and Ali ran consecutive to the family, to inquire the released teen if helium had seen Hassan. He showed the lad Hassan’s photo. Like each different time, thing came of it. Another pb turned to sand. “We hunt done piles of bones and teeth. We tin hardly admit immoderate facial features,” Abeer says. “We find this person’s boot, that person’s belt. This is what we person to look through. It is arsenic if we’re searching the aerial itself.”

On the time Hassan disappeared, helium was wearing the apical of a tracksuit. Abeer inactive keeps the trousers, she says—the past thread inactive tethering her to her lad that fateful day. Two years ago, a fewer days aft her lad vanished, Abeer discovered a dependable connection connected her telephone that Hassan had sent his teacher successful Khan Younis. The teacher had spent years helping him with code and societal skills, and helium was profoundly attached to her. In the message, his dependable is thin. “I’m hungry,” helium says. “Make maine food.” Hassan had sent the enactment without Abeer knowing, erstwhile helium heard that determination was nutrient to the southbound wherever the teacher lived. She thinks present that Hassan near their location to spell to the teacher, successful hopes of a meal. Abeer cannot perceive to the dependable memo. She cannot delete it.

This nonfiction was produced successful concern with the Palestine Reporting Lab, a task of Just Vision.

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