Gazan families grapple with loss of loved ones as forensic infrastructure collapses amid Israel's ongoing genocide

Maqbula Ahmed sits on a plastic stool in Khan Younis, scrolling through photos and video clips of her two eldest sons on her phone.

She does this most days, shifting between the floor and a broken chair, tears streaming down her face as she remembers them before the Gaza genocide.

Her sons, Muhammad, 45, and Medhat, 42, were killed along with their wives, Nadia and Fawzia, and their nine children when an Israeli air strike destroyed the family home on 30 December 2023.

Two years have now passed. It is December 2025. Decomposition is complete. What remains of her sons and grandchildren — 12 people in total — are scattered fragments of bone, indistinguishable from the remains of the other 13 people buried beneath the same rubble.

“I dreamed of holding them one last time, the way every mother and grandmother does when saying goodbye,” Maqbula said, her voice breaking as she spoke to The New Arab. “But when they cleared the debris, we found only scattered bones, mixed with the bones of others — a few tiny fragments for each person. That is all I was allowed to say farewell to.”

No DNA, no certainty 

Maqbula’s family is one of thousands facing what she describes as an impossible reality in Gaza, where the collapse of forensic infrastructure has forced authorities to rely on primitive and unreliable methods to identify the dead.

There is no DNA testing, no dental records and no fingerprint analysis. Instead, families are asked to identify their loved ones — or what remains of them — based on bone measurements, fragments of clothing and hair colour: guesswork presented in the language of science.

When the debris was removed from Maqbula’s home, specialists arrived carrying measuring tools. They measured bones, consulted family members about ages and physical characteristics, and offered estimates about who might be who. Yet these estimates are only that — educated guesses.

“They would ask me, ‘How old was your son? What was he like?’ Then they would measure a bone and say, ‘This appears to be someone between 40 and 50 years old,’” Maqbula explained. “I would reply, ‘That could be my son.’ But I don’t actually know. We have no way to be certain. We simply assume.”

She wept as she described the process of trying to identify her family.

“They said this small skull fragment was likely my granddaughter, based on the black hair. This vertebra could be her mother. This bone could be my son. Everything is ‘could be’. Everything is guessing. I was forced to kiss small bones and hope they belonged to my children.”

Beside her sat her grandson Rashad, 20, who survived because he had fled days before the strike. He tried to comfort her.

“Grandmother, I’m still here. Tomorrow I will marry and make you happy,” he said gently. “Let’s stop thinking about the dead. What can we do now?”

Maqbula pulled him close. “God willing, I will see you married. But I am terrified the same thing will happen to you.”

'A pain that will never leave me'

The anguish, however, does not end with identification. Families say that even after remains are tentatively identified, relatives often cannot be buried separately. Maqbula’s 12 family members were placed in a single grave.

Rashad’s uncle, Mustafa Abu Hadrous, 50, describes a similar ordeal. His sister Sabreen, 38, her husband Muhammad Abdullah, 39, and their five children were killed on 26 February 2024 in Khan Younis.

Mustafa was able to recover his sister, her husband and their eldest daughter, Zahra, 12. However, their four other children — Munatallah, nine; Essam, eight; and twins Judi and Juri, four — remained buried under rubble for 10 months. When Civil Defence and specialised teams finally cleared the debris in December, they found only bone fragments.

“There is no medical examination to confirm these bones actually belong to my sister’s family,” Mustafa said. “We rely only on visual inspection and the location of the bombing. It is a catastrophe: our children are killed, we are prevented from rescuing them at the moment of the strike, and then we are denied even the certainty of knowing their identities. We had to bury all five of them in one grave because most of their bodies no longer exist.”

He paused before adding, “All five — my sister, her husband and their four children — in a single grave. This is a pain that will never leave me.”

Piecing together lives lost

For the officials tasked with identifying the dead, the situation is equally stark.

Sameh Hamad, director of criminal evidence in Khan Younis and overseer of the body and missing persons file, describes the forensic operation in blunt terms as “primitive methods far removed from any specialised medical or technical procedures available elsewhere in the world.”

“We have no capacity,” Sameh said. “No equipment whatsoever. No DNA testing. No tissue analysis. We cannot lift fingerprints or collect forensic evidence. We lack even basic protective equipment — gloves, disinfectants. We are working with nothing.”

The process, he explained, depends entirely on improvisation. When bodies are received from Israeli authorities, Sameh’s team photographs distinguishing marks — the jaw, surgical scars, prosthetics such as artificial eyes or hearing aids. They document personal items found with the remains — clothing, shoes, watches and rings. These photographs are uploaded to a health ministry system that families can access online, hoping to recognise something.

“We collect all the details from relatives about who should have been in the destroyed house — age, sex, any belongings they had,” Sameh said. “Then we measure the bones we find and estimate the ages. Families come and try to match what they see to those estimates. If we determine that bones likely belong to someone aged 50 to 55, the family might say, ‘That could be my father.’ It is approximate, not exact. But this is all we have.”

'That's my son!'

Since the ceasefire began last October, Israeli authorities have returned 360 bodies. Of those, 101 have been identified by their families. The rest remain unidentified or unconfirmed. The bodies are kept in morgue freezers, when space is available, for four or five days before being buried in mass graves. Of the 360 bodies, 15 remain unidentified and will be shown to families in northern Gaza in the hope that someone may recognise them.

One recent case, Sameh said, has stayed with him.

“A mother came to view photographs of bodies displayed on a large screen at the hospital. During the presentation, she suddenly recognised some of her son’s belongings. She screamed, ‘That’s my son! That’s my son!’ and collapsed, sobbing hysterically. Dozens of people present began crying with her. She had believed her son was detained by the occupation. But he had been dead all along.”

He paused, struggling to continue.

The case of the Al-Astal family, he added, illustrates the scale of decomposition. Twenty-five people were buried beneath one home at the start of the genocide. When the debris was removed two years later, their remains would have filled three shrouds if gathered together. Instead, they were distributed across 14 shrouds before mass burial.

“At bombing sites, we have nothing,” Sameh said. “Just gloves and a camera. No protective equipment against infection. No basic tools. We are working with absolutely no equipment at all.”

This is the reality in Gaza today. Families say it is not only the killing that devastates them, but the denial of certainty. Not only death, but also the inability to properly identify and honour the dead. Instead, there is waiting and guessing, year after year, as decomposed remains sit in hospital freezers awaiting DNA testing that may never come.

Mohamed Solaimane is a Gaza-based journalist with bylines in regional and international outlets, focusing on humanitarian and environmental issues

This piece is published in collaboration with Egab