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- October 24, 202614°
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Palestine asks UN to document missing and detained people in Gaza
The Permanent Mission of Palestine to the UN Office at Geneva appealed to special-procedure mechanisms to clarify the fate of missing and detained people in Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defense Directorate said the remains of more than 8,000 people were under the rubble and that recovery efforts could take about eight years.
Palestine has requested comprehensive records and information from the United Nations to determine the fate of missing and detained people in Gaza.
In a letter sent on behalf of the Foreign Ministry to the UN’s special-procedure mechanisms, the Permanent Mission of Palestine to the UN Office at Geneva called for the status of missing and detained people to be clarified.
The recipients included the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the special rapporteurs on human rights, torture and extrajudicial executions in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
Request for information on people missing under the rubble
The Palestinian letter said that thousands of people, including women and children, were still missing. It said the remains of some people trapped beneath the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings could not be reached, while the fate of others remained unknown.
The destruction of civilian infrastructure and records had disrupted rescue and forensic services, making it more difficult to identify those who had died and determine the fate of missing people.
Gaza’s government Media Office announced in October 2025 that the number of missing Palestinians in the territory was approximately 9,500. After the ceasefire agreement took effect, the recovery of remains from the rubble and the release of some detainees clarified the fate of some of the missing; some families learned that relatives they had believed to be dead were alive.
The Palestinian Civil Defense Directorate said more than 8,000 missing people were still under the rubble and that recovering the remains could take about eight years with the resources currently available.
Call for records on the status of detainees
The request called for information on the locations, health conditions and legal status of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. It said doctors and other health workers were among the detainees.
Palestine called for the publication of an updated and comprehensive record containing the identities of detained people, the locations and dates of their arrests and detention, their legal status and their health information.
It also called for the fate of the remains of Palestinians detained by Israel to be clarified and for the remains to be handed over to their families immediately. It requested the information and documents necessary to establish their identities and the circumstances of their deaths.
Palestinian prisoner organizations said detention cases in Gaza numbered in the thousands and that military operations, the interruption of information flows and enforced disappearances had made record-keeping difficult.
Reports by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations said approximately 9,350 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children and 90 women. The same reports alleged that detainees were subjected to torture, starvation and medical neglect, and that dozens of people had died as a result of these practices.
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