Gaza's forcibly disappeared women: Families trapped in uncertainty and grief

While the world marks International Women's Day on 8 March by celebrating the achievements of women and highlighting their struggles globally, in Gaza the day is overshadowed by a different reality as Palestinian families continue to endure the disappearance of daughters, wives, and mothers.

The absence of these women has left homes hollow, lives unsettled, and communities gripped by fear and uncertainty.

Nineteen-year-old Layla Abu Saleh vanished while fleeing the northern town of Beit Lahia, her family unaware whether she is alive, dead, or imprisoned.

"We fled the bombing 18 months ago, carrying whatever we could. Layla was with us then, and after that, she disappeared," Ali Abu Saleh, her father, recalled to The New Arab. "Every day, I go from hospital to shelter to makeshift camp, asking about any girl who could be her… but every time, the answer is nothing. Nothing at all."

Her mother, Um Saleh, trying to compose herself, breaks down mid-sentence. "Layla was our eldest, our laughter, our guide. Now, every corner of the house feels empty," she told TNA.

"Food has no taste. The children wander through the rooms as if the walls themselves swallowed their sister […] I don't know if she's alive, if she was caught by the army or worse. I cannot imagine the pain she may have faced," the mother added.

"Sometimes I dream she comes back. I search everywhere, under the beds, in empty closets, even in my sleep, but she is gone. I lost my own happiness as nothing feels normal without her," said Layla's younger sister, 14-year-old Reem/

Farther south, in Khan Younis, another family is caught in a similar nightmare.

Suad al-Sheikh Khalil, 45, mother of four, disappeared during the displacement wave of January 2024.

Her family clings to hope that she is being detained, but the uncertainty corrodes every day of their lives.

"She was always there, for her children, for her neighbours, for everyone who needed her. And one day, she vanished. We have heard nothing since," Suad's mother recalled the sudden absence of her daughter to TNA.

"Our children ask about their mother constantly. We try to reassure them, but there is nothing to tell them. I have gone to hospitals, aid centres, and even contacted the Red Cross, but nothing. No one can tell us where she is," Suad's husband, whose livelihood was destroyed by the war, told TNA.

"We checked every displacement camp, spoke to anyone who might have seen her. Every door we knocked on led to silence. We live with this anxiety constantly. It is not just fear, it is the emptiness of not knowing," he added.

In the Jabalia refugee camp, the family of elderly Fatima lives with another form of limbo. Believed to have died during an Israeli army incursion, no trace of her has been found.

Her eldest daughter, Safaa, told TNA, "We have only silence, only emptiness. We combed the rubble, went to hospitals, tried the Red Cross […] nothing. Each day, the pain repeats itself. We call her name everywhere, post her pictures online, ask neighbours, knock on doors, but still nothing. Life has been completely overturned."

The family's attempts to seek justice from international bodies have yielded no response. "We are left in a void," Safaa said. "No rights, no answers, just memories."

The magnitude of these disappearances is staggering. According to the Palestinian Centre for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons, some 3,200 women and girls remain unaccounted for since October 2023.

Most are likely buried beneath collapsed homes; others may be held in Israeli detention facilities, facing deprivation, neglect, and violation of their legal rights.

The centre warned that withholding information constitutes a grave breach of international law and human rights, and that families' fear of enforced disappearance in prisons is justified.

Civil defence teams continue to struggle to access devastated areas, delaying the recovery of the missing. Every day that passes without clarity compounds the suffering of those left behind.

On International Women's Day, this anguish becomes particularly poignant. Families are not only mourning the disappearance of women; they are denied even the knowledge of their fate, the dignity of a proper burial, or the possibility of justice.

"Stories like Layla's, Suad's, and Fatima's remind us that the numbers we see in reports are only the surface. Behind them are thousands of families waiting in silence, living in daily anguish, enduring trauma that no one can measure," Lamia Al-Amsi, a Gaza-based Human rights activist, told TNA.  

"There is a difference between losing someone to a documented death and losing someone without knowing their fate. The women about whom nothing is known inflict double suffering. Children grow up without mothers or sisters, elderly parents endure prolonged trauma, and entire households are trapped in an unending cycle of fear and uncertainty," she said.

Despite the devastation, women in Gaza continue to survive, sustaining their families amid ruins. Every day of waiting speaks to resilience, but also to the urgent need for international intervention to uncover the fate of the missing, to ensure legal protection, and to end the ambiguity that leaves thousands of families suspended between hope and despair.

Some families have turned to social media in desperation, posting photos, names, and descriptions of their missing loved ones, hoping that someone, somewhere, can provide answers.

In Gaza, enforced disappearances are more than the loss of individuals; they are the erosion of peace, security, and human dignity.

Every photograph, every memory, every hope of return is a silent plea, a testament to lives upended by war, and a call to the world not to look away.