Gaza Herald – Around 2,000 Palestinians remain missing in Gaza, with their whereabouts unknown after disappearing during Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, a rights center revealed.
The Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons said the reported Israeli withholding of around 1,700 Palestinian bodies, allegedly for use as bargaining leverage in future negotiations, provides further evidence of a systematic policy of enforced disappearance and a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
The center stressed that the figure of 1,700 withheld bodies represents only part of the wider crisis facing Palestinian families. Thousands of Palestinians disappeared during Israeli military attacks, while others went missing while seeking humanitarian aid or while trapped in areas under direct Israeli military control.
For their families, the disappearances have created a devastating cycle of uncertainty, with relatives left without knowing whether their loved ones were killed, detained, forcibly disappeared, or remain among those whose bodies are being withheld by Israeli authorities.
Since the October 2025 ceasefire came into effect, the center said Israel has returned around 480 Palestinian bodies in separate batches. Gaza’s health authorities were reportedly forced to bury 377 of them without identification after receiving no personal information, belongings, medical records or details concerning the circumstances and dates of their deaths.
The center said the condition of some of the returned bodies, including physical damage and inadequate preservation, has made identification even more difficult and deepened the suffering of Palestinian families searching for their loved ones.
It emphasized that Palestinian families have a fundamental right to know the fate and whereabouts of their relatives. International humanitarian law requires the world to search for the Palestinian killed, respect their remains, facilitate identification and ensure their dignified return.
The center called on the international community and the International Committee of the Red Cross to exert immediate pressure on Israel to disclose full information about missing Palestinians and withheld bodies, grant medical and human-rights teams access to them, and ensure the unconditional return of the remains for dignified burial.
The issue is part of a much broader crisis of Palestinians missing or forcibly disappeared during Israel’s genocide on Gaza, leaving thousands of families without answers while continuing to search for their relatives amid the destruction of the Strip.
