Palestine has issued an urgent appeal to United Nations mechanisms to investigate the disappearance of thousands of Palestinians and reveal the fate of the missing and detained, including women and children, in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly the Gaza Strip. This came in a letter sent by the Permanent Mission of Palestine to the United Nations in Geneva, on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, on Friday, to a number of special procedure mechanisms of the international organization, according to the official Palestinian news agency "Wafa".
The entities addressed by the letter included the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the Special Rapporteurs on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, on torture, and on extrajudicial executions. The letter clarified that thousands of Palestinians remain missing, including children and women, some under the rubble of homes and buildings destroyed by Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, while others have not had their bodies found or their fate determined.
It pointed out that the destruction of civilian infrastructure, records, rescue services, and forensic services increases the difficulty of identifying victims and revealing the fate of the missing. Regarding Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, the letter highlighted the withholding of information regarding their detention locations, health conditions, and fate, including doctors and health sector workers. It warned that depriving detainees' families, their lawyers, and independent monitoring bodies of information and access increases the risks of torture, ill-treatment, medical neglect, and death during detention.
Palestine called on UN mechanisms to take urgent action to investigate cases of disappearance and to address Israel to compel it to immediately reveal the fate of all detained or missing Palestinians and their locations. It also called for the publication of an updated and comprehensive record of Palestinian detainees, including their identities, places and dates of arrest and detention, along with their legal and health conditions. It further called for revealing the fate of Palestinian bodies held by Israel and their immediate return to their families, providing the necessary information and documents to identify them and the circumstances of their deaths.
With the outbreak of the genocidal war on Gaza on October 8, 2023, thousands of Palestinians went missing, some under the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings, while others were arrested by the Israeli army without disclosing the arrest or providing human rights organizations with arrest details. In October 2025, the Government Media Office stated that the number of missing Palestinians in the Strip reached approximately 9,500, some of whom are "martyrs still under the rubble," while the fate of others remains unknown. With the ceasefire agreement taking effect in October 2025, the fate of some missing persons has been revealed as body recovery operations from under the rubble began, and some detainees have been released from prisons, surprising their families who believed they had been killed.
In October of this year, the Palestinian Civil Defense agency stated that more than 8,000 missing persons are still under the rubble, and recovering them with current capabilities could take approximately 8 years. Regarding the detainees' file, Palestinian prisoner institutions stated on October 6 that arrest cases in the Gaza Strip since the start of the genocidal war number in the thousands, amid great difficulties in documentation due to the continuation of military operations, information blackouts, and enforced disappearances, according to "Wafa". Approximately 9,350 Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children and 90 female prisoners, amid Palestinian and Israeli human rights reports alleging they are subjected to torture, starvation, and medical neglect, leading to the deaths of dozens.
Source: Anadolu Agency
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