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Thousands of Palestinian families in Gaza are still searching for relatives who disappeared during the war, with many unable to learn whether their loved ones were killed, detained or buried beneath destroyed buildings. Anadolu Agency reported on the families’ uncertainty and the challenges facing recovery teams.
The United Nations estimates that the war has produced millions of tonnes of debris across Gaza. Palestinian Civil Defense says more than 8,000 people remain missing beneath the rubble.
Pat Griffiths, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Jerusalem, said families gather at hospitals when buses carrying released Palestinian detainees arrive, holding photographs in the hope of finding missing relatives.
ICRC psychologists describe the experience as “ambiguous loss”: families do not know whether someone they have not heard from is alive, dead or detained. “Thousands of people live with this limbo,” Griffiths said.
Amani Al Naouq, an ICRC spokesperson in Gaza, said families often ask the organization to tell them what happened. Some continue contacting the ICRC even when they expect no immediate answer, while others come to believe a missing relative has died without receiving confirmation.
The search is made harder by the scale of destruction and the presence of unexploded ordnance, hazardous materials and human remains in the ruins. The European Union, the UN and the World Bank estimated in an April 2026 assessment that removing and managing more than 68 million metric tonnes of debris would cost over $1.7 billion.
Limited equipment and access hamper recovery
Recovery teams lack heavy machinery, specialist equipment and reliable fuel supplies. Al Naouq said teams sometimes rely on only one or two excavators hired from private suppliers, with much of the work done by hand or using small equipment.
Teams often depend on families to identify where a relative was last seen, including the building and room. Recounting those details can force families to revisit the circumstances in which they could not reach or save loved ones, Al Naouq said.
Griffiths, who recently spent a week in Gaza, described seeing kilometres of rubble, much of it dangerous because of unexploded remnants of war. The ICRC supports the rental of two excavators, he said, but that is “a drop in the ocean”.
Access restrictions prevent search teams from safely reaching large parts of Gaza, Griffiths said. DNA testing is also unavailable in the territory, so forensic teams rely on details such as age, sex, height, injuries, dental information, clothing, personal belongings and the place where remains were found.
Those identifying clues can disappear as remains decompose or become skeletonized, while moving debris may separate remains from their original location. “The more time passes, the harder identifying the deceased gets,” Griffiths said. Drawing on experience from conflicts including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, he said searches can continue for years or decades.
Officials warn rubble removal could destroy evidence
Mayy El Sheikh of the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory described interviewing a 37-year-old woman with a disability whose husband went missing after an attack on his family home in northern Gaza in 2023. The couple have a five-year-old son.
Almost all of the woman’s husband’s family were killed, El Sheikh said. Some remains were recovered, but his were not. The woman believes they are beneath a mound of rubble beyond the Israeli military deployment line known as the “yellow line”.
El Sheikh said the woman found it deeply painful to recount what happened and felt unable to help her son recover because he had no grave to visit. “For her, the war is not over until her husband is found,” she said. El Sheikh added that some families who believed missing relatives had died later recognized them alive in images or videos from Israeli prisons.
UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese has warned that removing, crushing or relocating debris in areas under Israeli military control could destroy human remains and potential evidence of alleged international crimes.
El Sheikh said evidence could already be getting lost or damaged because of the destruction, access restrictions, reported rubble removal and shortages of machinery and forensic capacity. She said large areas remain inaccessible to independent observers and investigators.
Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, said the commission had received reports of debris removal and possible evidence being destroyed. “We are concerned that the removal of rubble could result in evidence getting lost forever,” he said.
Muralidhar said material recovered from rubble could complement witness accounts and medical and forensic evidence. Its loss would not necessarily prevent investigators from establishing alleged crimes, but could leave important gaps. He also emphasized families’ right to know what happened to their relatives, saying such information can help provide a sense of memory and closure.
Griffiths called for greater humanitarian access and more resources, including heavy machinery, so recovery teams can expand their work and reach areas they cannot currently enter. Muralidhar also called for international cooperation to speed up debris clearance while preventing further destruction.
The ICRC is supporting a cemetery for unidentified people in Deir al-Balah. When remains cannot be identified, they can be buried in individual graves marked with unique serial numbers linked to records containing available forensic information.
The organization is also supporting an information-sharing system connecting recovery teams, forensic authorities and cemetery managers, with the aim of preserving information for possible future identification, including if DNA testing becomes available in Gaza.
Griffiths said he and Al Naouq met a young woman in the cemetery whose husband’s remains had eventually been identified using forensic methods available in Gaza. Having a grave she could visit gave her “a sense of closure, a way to mourn”, he said. For thousands of other families still searching, that possibility remains out of reach.
