PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: The disappeared of Gaza
This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and lightly edited for readability. Please consult the corresponding audio before quoting.
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Ghousoon Bisharat
Welcome to the +972 Podcast, your direct line to the journalists, thinkers, and activists struggling for justice in Israel-Palestine. I’m your host Ghousoon Bisharat, Editor in Chief of +972 Magazine. Our podcast grounds the discussion in lived realities to bring you closer to the issues that matter most between the River and the Sea.
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Ghousoon Bisharat
For over two years, the devastation wrought by Israel in the Gaza Strip has been reported from seemingly every angle. The destruction is total, the death toll staggering. But what about the loss you can’t see, can’t measure, and can’t even confirm?
Somewhere between 9,000 and 15,000 people are mis sing in Gaza. Those are the best estimates because Israel has systematically withheld information on those forcibly disappeared, made it nearly impossible to retrieve bodies buried under the rubble, and blocked access to the technology necessary for identifying much of these remains.
For eight months, Gazan journalist Mahmoud Mujtaha documented some of the stories of the missing, challenging every part of that system to show how people disappear and what disappearance actually means for the families still waiting for an answer as to the fate of their loved ones.
His investigation, published last month, is a project of the Palestine Reporting Lab, produced in partnership with Wired and published in Arabic on Rasif 22. Mahmoud, thank you for joining me on the +972 podcast.
Mahmoud Mushtaha
Thank you for having me today.
Ghousoon Bisharat
At the heart of your investigation into the missing people of Gaza is a 16-year-old boy named Hassan al-Qatta, an autistic teenager who rode his bicycle out of his neighborhood one afternoon in April 2024 and never came back. He’s not confirmed dead. He’s not confirmed alive. He simply does not exist anywhere. How did you hear about Hassan’s story?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
I heard about Hassan even in the past, before Hassan had been disappeared, and the suffering of Abir with Hassan when he was born, when Israel banned him to get a treatment outside Gaza. And during looking and searching for answers to thousands of families in Gaza related to their beloved ones, the missing people. I checked with my friend, with my relatives about the missing and if someone knows anyone missing and would like to speak or to talk.
And one of the cases I talked with and continued to follow up for almost eight months was Abir Skaik, the mother of Hassan al-Qatta, who disappeared on April 15, 2024. And when I dig deeper with Abir and her family and the relation between Abir and Hassan, from this point, I said, “Ok, I will focus on Hassan alongside other cases.” Hassan’s case represents about 14,000 to 15,000 missing.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And it’s clear from your investigation how much time you spent talking to Abir and Ali, the parents of Hassan. Can you tell me more about what they have done since his disappearance two years ago?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
So when I spoke to Abir and Ali about what they are doing or what they were looking the first time, they were looking or searching in hospitals under rubble. They are looking among any child or any displaced children who were displaced, they visited. They were looking about the deceased body or even decomposed bodies in the hospital. The trauma or the shock was to me, when they were looking among the decomposed bodies and they were looking for just for fragments for anything related to Hassan like teeth, like birth marks, like anything could help them to identify their son.
Alongside all of this pain, they contact all organizations, all human rights in Gaza or outside Gaza related to the missing, and no single institution answered them if he is alive or if he is dead, if he’s in detention or he’s not.
Ghousoon Bisharat
In the case of Hassan, he left one afternoon on his bike and never came back. Some of the Gazans missing that you report on were taken from their homes during military raids. Others were last seen at checkpoints or approaching aid distribution sites. Some have vanished into formal or informal Israeli detention sites, and some have been essentially evaporated by extreme heat, leaving no recoverable bodies. How can you start reporting on a story when so much is unknown and undocumented?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
I try to document, to report what is happening, because I experienced this. It’s my own experience in Gaza. When I was in Gaza, I left Gaza in April 2024, so in the sixth month of the genocide. I still remember on 21 November 2023, in the Al-Shuja’iyya neighborhood, where family of mine, the building where they were located, was bombed by Israel and around 70 persons, most of them children, were inside the building. I still remember when we went to check on them or to see what’s happening to them or to the building, there were no bodies — you cannot see bodies. The bodies are burned and crushed under the building and you cannot see anything. You don’t know what to do — you cannot even think you just see the legs of man here, a hair here, clothes here. You can see like one t-shirt with blood and a small fragment and that’s it.
I remember what we did when we buried them. We just put a blanket on the ground and collected the fragments of the remaining or burned bodies. And we guessed or assumed like, [this is] Ibrahim with his wife and five daughters, okay? Put five bodies in one blanket and close it and just bury it. Do these bodies really belong to Ibrahim and his family? We don’t know. Because as I told you, the bodies are burnt, crushed. You cannot recognize [it]. If someone told us, “it’s belonging to a human being,” we can’t believe it, because you cannot recognize by eye if it’s a human being or not.
Thousands of families — happen the same to them when they disappeared or [went] missing in Gaza.
Ghousoon Bisharat
In your investigation, you say that the inability to identify bodies or assess if someone is missing or dead is not some unavoidable consequence of the war. And you show a series of specific documented decisions by the Israeli government, like blocking the entrance of forensic equipment, barring the Red Cross from accessing prisoners, withholding information on detainees…why is that distinction so important?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
It’s so important to show that the answer for the missing is not impossible, we can find an answer. It is possible to find an answer for the missing. But we have two reasons. The first reason is that Israel denied ICRC and human rights groups access to Israel detention, to get access to databases of where the Palestinians are being held or who are the Palestinians inside the detention. The ICRC told me [that] since October 7 until now, almost more than two years, Israel still banned them from entering or accessing Palestinian detainees, which is in violation to international law or the Geneva Convention.
Other human rights group, Israel started to give them access to detention after May 2025. And until now they still denied some information of some Palestinian detainees that have been hidden inside detention, and they told the organization that there is no indication. But later, the family figured out that their son have been killed inside detention.
The other reason to highlight more that the missing in Gaza is not impossible to answer. When I talked to the head of the forensic department in Gaza about the missing, he told me, “if Israel allowed forensic tools to enter into Gaza, we can identify the bodies.” But what they are doing now, it’s recognized by their eyes, hands, by clothes. Israel banned these technologies to enter Gaza and technologies include DNA testing, genetic analysis, even fingerprint and biometric scanners are not available in Gaza.
It’s back like 2007 when the blockade started in Gaza. There is no DNA record in Gaza or no forensic equipment or any biometric or fingerprint records or database in Gaza. Even now it’s not easy to compare. But what they suggested, the forensic department in Gaza, they suggested that if they could allow now forensic tools to enter Gaza, they can compare between alive and dead.
But it is denied from Israel. And even Israel is not even allowing human rights groups or the ICRC to handle the forensic tools in Gaza. When they send the bodies in Gaza, the decomposing bodies in Gaza, they send the body even naked from clothes, naked from anything related to the body that can help the families or the Minister of Health to know the body or to whom this body belongs.
Ghousoon Bisharat
When a person simply does not exist on any record, that creates a situation of legal limbo for the family. What does that look like in everyday life?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
Their daily life they do not recognize. There is no category for the missing and at the same time for their families. So they cannot move, they cannot act, they cannot get access to food, they can’t get access to aid. For example, about the wives of the missing: They are not widows and they are not wives. It caused a big problem for them, especially for the wives. When I talk to human rights group about the women or wives of the missing in Gaza, they are exposed to exploitation and some of them were exposed to sexual harassment.
They don’t have any guardianship, they don’t have sponsorships, they don’t have any kind of security. In the law and in the eyes of the people around her, she has a husband, but she doesn’t have a husband. And in the law, she cannot prove if she has a husband or. She cannot.
The deeper problem with the children, which just emerged after October 7 — we call them “de-facto orphans or “yetim hukm al-waqa.” These children are not orphans, and they don’t have parents. They cannot prove to organizations in the way that the law recognizes that they are orphans. It’s affected thousands of families or thousands of children. Until now, institutions in Gaza cannot help them. The child is supposed to have a guardianship or sponsorship. But in Gaza, they cannot. They cannot get inheritance. They can’t get access to bank accounts. One of the wives told me that she and her husband were depending on pensions. But when she tried to reach out to the bank again to get salary or pension, the bank denied. You need to bring your husband with you or bring a death certificate. The death certificate is another legal issue that families cannot get the death certificate, because if you want to get a death certificate at the Ministry of Health in Gaza now, you must bring two witnesses that saw the body or witness that the body is killed or the person is killed. Gaza’s authorities offered a solution for the families to get a death certificate after six months of the person disappeared. It started from October 2025, or from the ceasefire. But the authority in Ramallah rejected the new law saying that the law in the Palestinian judiciary will still have it as four years of the missing, not six months. But in terms of missing, when you talk about the evaporated bodies, or the bodies that were buried directly without any record, who can recognize or who can witness? Even to get a category that recognizes your loved one, you can’t get it. You are still stuck, you are not a wife or you are not a husband. You are not alive, you are not dead.
Ghousoon Bisharat
And from speaking to so many families in this situation, Mahmoud, what does not knowing actually do to a person emotionally? To live without being able to grieve, without being able to move forward, without even being able to name what you have lost?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
Not knowing for the families means , as they told me, they cannot continue their life. They are still stuck with the past on the day that their beloved one is gone, or missing, or disappeared. And let me give you an example with Abir Skaik and her husband Ali: Hassan disappeared from [the] at-Tuffah neighborhood, which is now considered the border on the yellow line in Gaza. Since when he disappeared, his family is still in their home, and they refused to leave or to evacuate their area. During the genocide, during the war, when they received this evacuation order to leave the area, and when the Israeli tanks approached them, approached the area, they refused to leave and they refused to move.
They were exposed to danger, they were exposed to death because of Hassan, because they don’t know anything about Hassan. And she said, and I’m quoting here, she said, “if you want me to leave the area, or if you want me to leave my land, then bring my son, then I can leave.” You feel that what Israel is doing in Gaza implements a system that the grave of your son, you can’t feel it. You can’t feel the dignity that your son now he’s in heaven, or he’s in a better place.
For the killed, it’s easy, he is killed, allah yerhamo. We can visit them in the graveyard. But for Hassan, there is nothing to remember him. Just what was left from photos, from some clothes, his room. As I said, for the thousands of families, it is like you are living in purgatory, you are living in hell, even [it’s] like you are not living because there is no life for the family of the missing. You cannot move, you cannot forget.
No single institution — no organization, even local organization or international organization — can help these families and no authorities — governmental authority, humanitarian authorities, even international law or any organization — can help people to know.
Ghousoon Bisharat
There were other reports done and published on the missing people in Gaza. But one of the things that stood out for me in your investigation is the much higher estimate on the number of people missing. In your investigation, you say that 14,000 to 15,000 are missing, this is according to the polling done by the Institute for Social and Economic Progress, a Palestinian research group, while the Gaza Health Ministry says that the number is more than 9,500. The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Displaced says its field estimates indicate around 9,000. Is this part of the tragedy, that no one really has accurate numbers?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
Yes, it is. The scale of the missing reveals to us the institutional collapse in Gaza. No single institution has a complete number of them missing because of the situation, because the infrastructure in Gaza that has been destroyed by Israel. We are talking about genocide and still ongoing genocide for almost more than two years. If we want to count how many are missing in Gaza, no one knows.
When we did the poll with the ISEP or the Institute for Social and Economic Progress, it estimated 14,000 to 15,000, which is the data built on a survey done in Gaza by hundreds of families. It’s a good estimate. While we suggest, or we assume the number is higher than this, because more than one million Gazans are displaced. From my experience, when I talk to the families in Gaza, many of them until now cannot report to organizations because of the internet, media black out, because of the infrastructure in Gaza, because of the displacement. They keep moving from place to place, from place to other place. So even 15, or 14 to 15 is still an estimate, and it’s not the last number or the accurate number.
Even when we compare [it] to the Ministry of Health, the list of the Ministry of Health includes the missing, the missing in detention, the missing who people don’t know anything [about], or the missing under rubble. But our estimation is just for the missing, not for people under rubble. At the same time, when we look from [a] wide perspective about the crisis of the missing in Gaza, we are talking almost after more than two years of ongoing genocide, and there is no one list of the missing in Gaza. They are people — the missing — they are people, they are human.
Thousands behind these numbers are still alive and looking for their sons, to their daughters, to their parents, where they are. So when we say that there is no list, you feel that the 15,000 just collapsed, just vanished without anything. So one of our proposed ideas is trying to help with creating a database for the missing, to know who is missing in Gaza and list their names.
Ghousoon Bisharat
This uncertainty that you described, or life in limbo, is not just experienced by families like Hassan’s, but all Gazans. There is no way of knowing if their neighborhood will be bombed tomorrow, no guarantee there will be food to purchase or if they can even afford it. Is all of that doing to the social fabrics — to families, to relationships?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
Destroyed. When we look at the whole situation, how the ongoing genocide shaped the people and shaped the daily lives of Gazans or Palestinians in terms of looking for food, looking for the missing, looking for the injured. Each one just was forced — not a choice — was forced to care about him, or to care about themselves, about the bread, about the food, about the simple daily lives that was not before October 7. But after October 7 all it changed.
I remember, I experienced, for example, starvation in Gaza when I was in Gaza City. I’m still thinking when I see now clean water, I compare [it] to the situation in Gaza. I remember when anyone in Gaza has just one liter of clean water, he will keep it to himself. It’s selfish, but the selfishness was designed and built from Israel to destroy the social fabric, to destroy the society.
Because before October 7 was not the situation. People were generous. People were living in dignity, were living a good life. There was a blockade and siege on Gaza, but there was a good social fabric. People were connected. But after October 7, what happens to Gaza, no one can imagine and no one can bear it. When you talk about Abir, for example, and what Abir passed through, and what Abir experienced during the genocide, it totally destroyed and reshaped the person and how the person is talking to the people. For example, Abir told me that if anyone told her to imagine that Hassan is killed, she cut her relation with him, she said no she is no longer to speak with him again. This is like for all the daily lives, for all the families in Gaza.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Mahmoud, you mentioned earlier in our conversation that you left Gaza two years ago after spending six months covering the genocide while living it as well. You’re now in London, physically out of Gaza. Back when you left, you wrote an incredibly powerful piece for +972 describing your exit from Gaza, and you concluded by saying, “but emotionally, I am still trapped in the war.” Talking to you now, I feel that you are still trapped in the war, that you are still in Gaza, although you are physically out, you’re in London. How do you actually feel?
Mahmoud Mushtaha
How I can forget? How I can start a new life? I was born and raised in Gaza. I lived 23 years under siege, under blockade, under repetitive war in Gaza, and it was ended by six months of ongoing genocide. How can I imagine that I’m living in London, I’m living with luxury people or luxury life in London where everything here is available, while my family is still in Gaza, my friends are still in Gaza, and what I experienced in Gaza, I cannot forget it. I cannot describe the feeling of living outside Gaza while emotionally I am still in Gaza. Until now, when I talk to my family, I try to be careful about what is in my background, what to tell them and what not to tell them. You feel that you are still stuck with the people, you are still stuck with the situations.
When I left Gaza, I said, “Okay, I will change my career, switch to another career, to work in other area, not to be stuck with journalism.” But honestly, I cannot.
The reportage about the missing, or the families, it changed my perspective, changed my focus in my job or in my work, literally changed it like 100%. Now I feel that I am committed to the families, I am committed to Abir, I am committed to find an answer where is Hassan or where is the other family or the thousands of families that are missing. Because until now Abir [is] messaging me and others [are] messaging me, “Is there any update? Is there any new information, did anyone reply to you?” So I can’t imagine myself as a person who is living now in safety and to leave the situation in Gaza as it doesn’t belong to me. I cannot.
Ghousoon Bisharat
Thank you, Mahmoud, for talking to me. Thank you for your time. I invite all our listeners to read your investigation about the missing people in Gaza, which we will add in the show notes and also read all your vital reporting, analysis, and op-eds on the + 972 magazine website. Thank you, Mahmoud.
Mahmoud Mushtaha
Yeah. Thank you, Ghousoon.
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Ghousoon Bisharat
This episode was produced by Jennifer Cutler, with help from the +972 Editorial Team. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review. It really helps new listeners find the show. Visit 972Mag.com for in-depth reporting, analysis, and opinions from the ground in Israel-Palestine, and don’t forget to download the +972 app and subscribe to our newsletters.
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