Anwar looking for her brother with autism … and stories of suffering for thousands of missing people in Gaza

Anwar Hawas (22 years) comes out every morning, carrying in her hands printed papers with the image of her missing brother Hadi, 17, and walks with her through the destroyed streets of Gaza in search of any glimmer of hope. Anwar goes on the alleys of the city and asks people whether they have seen Hadi, a child with autism and does not speak, and he was lost three weeks ago in the Al -Zaytoun neighborhood after leaving the house and he did not return.

Our correspondent in the Gaza Strip was accompanied by lights on one of her daily trips to search for her brother Hadi. Anwar explains to our correspondent her suffering by saying: “I am looking for my brother Hadi Hawas. Every day I go out of the morning and go back in the evening hours, I may find it. I printed his image and stick it to the walls and ask people and search the streets. I pray to God to help me find it.”

Resorting to traditional means

Anwar stops in front of the walls of the shops, sticking an image after another, asking the sellers in the streets, and heading to one of the field hospitals of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, in search of any information or impact that indicates it. I asked a hospital receptionist about her brother, and she presented her with a paper bearing his picture, name and family phone numbers. The employee was cursed in the paper, then Anwar replied that she had not seen this child before, and promised her that she would inform them if he sees or obtained any information about him. This scene is repeated in every neighborhood and angle, but to no avail.

Anwar adds: “Because of the absence of government agencies, the absence of security and safety, and the absence of official bodies that can help us find it, we had to resort to the old means, through the distribution of paper, especially in light of the interruptions of the Internet and communications. The situation is very difficult.”

Difficulty identifying the bodies

Anwar is not alone. On another mission, the young Ghazi Al -Majdalawi established an electronic initiative known as the “Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Hideors”, through which he tries to help in the mission of searching for missing persons.

Ghazi communicates daily by phone with families looking for their children, and is working on entering data on a digital platform that he created in cooperation with volunteers, where missing persons are recorded, information verification, and try to access results.

Al -Majdalawi says: “As the Israeli war continued on the Gaza Strip, and the continuing land military operations, we have launched an electronic platform. The occupation prohibits the entry of materials related to the DNA examination, which makes it difficult to get to know the bodies of the activated. There are hundreds, and perhaps thousands of unidentified dead.”

In light of this reality, human rights activists are highlighting the size of this tragedy. Mustafa Ibrahim, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al -Dameer Foundation for Human Rights, says: “We followed about 1,000 cases of forced loss or disappearance. We were able to reveal the fate of 600 of them by following us with the Israeli authorities, while the fate of about 420 people is still unknown. There are those who have disappeared forcibly, and they have no information.”

11 thousand missing since the beginning of the war

According to the statements of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of missing persons in the sector exceeded 11 thousand people since the beginning of the war, the majority of them are women and children.

The nature of the fate of these missing persons is still unclear, in the absence of accurate official statistics that determine whether they were killed in the air strikes and their bodies remained under the rubble, were detained, or disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

Local human rights organizations say that some missing persons believe that they are still detained inside Israeli prisons, while other reports suggest that a number of them have been forcibly disappeared without any information about their whereabouts so far.

Local reports indicate that dozens of Palestinians were lost while trying to reach aid distribution centers, and some of them are likely to have been killed and buried during military operations without their names in the lists of victims.

Residents of the sector face increasing difficulties in getting to know the bodies or documenting deaths, in light of the continued lack of capabilities necessary for research and recovery, which increases the complexity of efforts to determine the fate of thousands of missing people.