The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared confirmed that the case of detainee Bisan Fadl Muhammad Fayyad is a stark example of the tragedies resulting from the phenomenon of the missing and the policy of enforced disappearance pursued by Israeli occupation forces during their wide and ongoing military assault on the Gaza Strip for more than 22 months.
In a statement, the Center called for urgent pressure on the occupation to reveal the full fate of detainee Fayyad, to guarantee her release, and to provide her with proper medical treatment. The Center also demanded full information on all forcibly disappeared detainees, clarifying the fate of those still alive and revealing the truth about those killed in detention.
The Center noted that it had followed what the Fayyad family announced: on January 7, 2024, they received tragic news that their daughter, Bisan Fadl Muhammad Fayyad (who was then detained in occupation prisons), had been killed. They were handed a body said to be hers, with her clothes and official ID inside. The family lived with this excruciating grief for more than a year, mourning her loss—only to later discover that the truth was even more painful than everything they had endured.
The family stated that on March 21, 2025, they received a phone call confirming that Bisan was still alive inside Israeli occupation prisons. Since that day, the family has endured a bitter journey in search of the truth, reaching out to various institutions and organizations concerned with the file of prisoners and the disappeared.
According to the family, on the morning of Sunday, August 17, 2025, they received confirmation that their daughter Bisan is alive, but in extremely critical health condition, suffering from a spinal injury that has left her paralyzed from the waist down.
The human rights center stressed that this painful incident reflects just one aspect of the greater tragedy endured by thousands of Palestinians who are missing or forcibly disappeared in occupation prisons—families deprived of the most basic right to know the fate of their loved ones, living in constant limbo between despair and hope, loss and waiting.
The incident also highlights the occupation’s manipulation of bodies it hands over without full information about their identity, deliberately creating confusion by attaching certain documents to bodies that arrive in advanced states of decomposition, making identification extremely difficult—especially given the limited forensic capabilities available to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The Center emphasized the urgent need for a clear disclosure of detainee Bisan’s health condition, as well as the identification of the woman whose body was handed over at the time, claimed to be Bisan’s, and buried in Gaza.
The Center affirmed that this is a double crime: Israel not only denies detainees their rights but also practices enforced disappearance, depriving families of the truth. It stressed that Bisan Fayyad’s case is not an isolated incident, but rather a recurring tragedy that calls for urgent and decisive intervention.
It further noted that Israeli occupation forces continue to practice enforced disappearance against hundreds of detainees from the Gaza Strip, with information suggesting that dozens remain unaccounted for—whether alive or dead.
Finally, the Center called on the international community, human rights bodies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances to act immediately to uncover the fate of all missing and forcibly disappeared persons, to ensure their families are informed about their health conditions and detention circumstances, and to work toward ending this ongoing crime against them.
