The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared is following with profound concern and attention the documented data issued after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) received a list containing the names of prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons. The list included more than 8,000 prisoners from various regions across the Palestinian territories, among whom were 828 prisoners from the Gaza Strip whose families were informed of their status.
Following calls conducted by Red Cross teams, it was revealed that the families of 127 prisoners out of the 828 from the Gaza Strip were completely unaware that their relatives were still alive.
These shocking data prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the systematic crime of enforced disappearance committed by Israeli occupation authorities against civilians in the Gaza Strip to deepen their agony and torture their families as part of a collective punishment policy. The fact that 127 Palestinian families remained in absolute ignorance regarding the fate of their living relatives for all this time confirms that hundreds of other families continue to endure the heartbreak of loss, believing that the Israeli military killed their loved ones in separate incidents or under the rubble of destroyed buildings, while they are actually being held in secret inside Israeli prisons and detention camps.
Based on field documentation and reports from families, the Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared emphasizes that the inclusion of only 828 prisoners from the Gaza Strip in the list delivered to the ICRC reflects an incomplete and deficient record that does not represent the true scale of detainees and missing persons. According to the Center’s estimates and documented data, more than 7,000 individuals remain missing in the Gaza Strip. Among them, an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people are suspected of having been subjected to enforced disappearance following their arrest from homes, hospitals, shelter centers, military checkpoints, and border areas. Additionally, an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 missing persons are believed to be under the rubble, meaning that the fate of thousands of Gazans remains unknown and concealed due to systematic Israeli policies.
The Center stresses that deliberately withholding the names and fates of detainees, alongside selective or delayed disclosure of partial lists, constitutes a flagrant violation of the rules of international humanitarian law. This includes, in particular, the 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which prohibits secret detention and mandates the registration of all persons deprived of liberty as well as providing information to their families. It also violates Articles 32 and 33 of Additional Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Conventions and Article 26 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), which establish an unalterable legal and humanitarian foundation: “the inalienable right of families to know the fate of their relatives.”
The Center warns that continuing this policy of blackout and depriving families of their right to knowledge and transparency places thousands of families in a loop of psychological torture, constant doubt, and agonizing uncertainty. Furthermore, the absence of human rights oversight and the continued prohibition of family visits transform Israeli prisons into secret detention facilities where the health, legal status, and personal data of detainees are completely concealed from the outside world.
The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared holds the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for the lives and safety of all detainees and forcibly disappeared persons from the Gaza Strip. It calls for an urgent, binding international intervention to compel Israeli authorities to immediately and comprehensively disclose accurate and complete lists containing the names of all individuals detained since October 7, 2023, including those held in secret, unacknowledged military camps, to specify their locations of detention, or to disclose the circumstances of death for those who died in custody.
In this context, the Center demands that the international community, the United Nations, and the High Contracting Parties exert immediate pressure to obligate the occupation authorities to allow teams from the ICRC, as well as specialized human rights and medical organizations, immediate and unrestricted access to visit all prisons and detention centers, directly inspect the health and living conditions of detainees, provide transparent and updated data regarding their legal status, and enable their legally guaranteed right to regular communication with their families to end the anxiety and forced wait endured by thousands of families.
Finally, the Center urges the opening of an independent and effective international investigation into the systematic crime of enforced disappearance to which the residents of the Gaza Strip are subjected, and to hold accountable those responsible for secretly detaining civilians and concealing their fates. The Center stresses that revealing that 127 missing persons remain alive inside prisons is conclusive proof that the issue of the missing cannot be reduced to partial lists, and that human and legal justice will not be complete until the wall of Israeli blackout is shattered and every Palestinian family is enabled to exercise its inherent right to know the full truth regarding the fate of its loved ones.
