Ahmed al Madhoun, a 21-year-old man with Down’s syndrome, disappeared in May 2025 after leaving home to visit a local shop. His mother, Majdiya, has shown the BBC videos of him on her phone, including clips of him cuddling a kitten and laughing after belly-flopping into a swimming pool.
A Son’s Last Trip
Majdiya said Israeli strikes hit the area that day and she fears Ahmed may be dead, but she has not received confirmation. “I am not at peace,” she said. “I have not lost hope but whether they find him alive or dead, buried under the rubble, only then will I be at peace.”
Counting The Dead, Tracing The Unaccounted
Since Israel launched its military campaign, more than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The UN has described the ministry’s figures as reliable, and Israeli media reported in January that a senior Israeli security source said the military accepts the data as accurate.
However, the death toll may be an underestimate because bodies buried under rubble are not counted by the health ministry. The Red Cross said it has received more than 5,000 requests to trace missing people who could be buried amid the destruction. Gaza’s Civil Defence agency estimated the number of missing people at more than 8,000.
Bodies continue to be found on a daily basis. Earlier this month, a mass funeral was held in Gaza City for more than 100 people killed in an Israeli attack in 2023. Their remains were only recently recovered and identified, enabling them to be buried.
The Red Cross said recovery work is made harder by the scale of destruction and a lack of bulldozers. It said identification is also difficult when remains have been dead for a long time and when DNA testing is limited, partly because of Israeli restrictions on what can enter Gaza.
Fear Of Detention And Limits On Records
Ahmed’s family believes he may have been killed, but it is also concerned he could have been detained by Israeli security forces. Over almost three years of war, Israeli forces detained about 7,000 Palestinians from Gaza, according to the Israel-based Public Committee Against Torture. The group said more than 5,000 were later released without being charged.
HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group, said that as of this month around 1,300 detainees from Gaza were being held in Israeli jails without charge or trial. HaMoked said its figures do not include people held directly by the Israeli military.
Palestinian families have often not been told by Israel about arrests or where relatives are being held, HaMoked and other rights groups said. The BBC asked the Israeli Defence Forces and the Israel Prison Service about their reported failure to contact relatives of detainees. Israeli authorities have previously said prolonged detentions were carried out for wartime security reasons and denied that detentions are arbitrary.
Aida al Drimli from the Sabra district of Gaza City said her son Mahmoud disappeared in 2024. She initially feared he had been killed in an Israeli attack after her husband checked hospitals. This summer, she said a photo circulated on social media showing two Israeli soldiers posing with a Palestinian detainee blindfolded and bound, and she believed it was Mahmoud.
Aida said she was certain based on facial features and how the detainee sits, but she acknowledged that with only one photograph, she cannot be fully sure. She said seeing her son in that condition was both “relieving” and humiliating.
The BBC asked the Israel Prison Service about Mahmoud and about Ahmed. The IPS said it had no record of holding either man. The BBC also put questions to Israel’s military, which runs detention centres and prisons, but it did not respond.
Israel does not allow international journalists, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza. The Red Cross, the families said, has been asked to try to clarify whether Mahmoud is being held, but Israel has not permitted the organisation to access prison records.
Israeli lawyer Tal Steiner, who works on locating detainees, told the BBC that changes since October 7 have made the process harder, including the ban on International Committee of the Red Cross prison visits and the lack of lists of people held by Israel. She said families carry the strain of not knowing whether a relative is dead or alive, adding that tracing has become more difficult over the past three years.
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19 August 2026
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