Eurasia Press & News
At least five Palestinian boys have gone missing in recent weeks while searching for food aid in northern Gaza, raising alarm among families and rights groups who fear they have been abducted by Israeli forces.
The disappearances happened in the Zikim border area between 24 June and 2 August, according to documentation gathered by Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP).
The boys, aged between 12 and 16, were residents of Gaza City. Despite exhaustive searches through hospitals and morgues, their families have found no trace of them.
“Israeli forces are shooting, detaining, and disappearing Palestinian children seeking aid in Gaza,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP.
“Israeli forces have refused to disclose the numbers, names, and whereabouts of Palestinian children from Gaza in military custody, and these children have had no contact with the outside world.
“We have more than two decades of evidence indicating that Israeli forces torture Palestinian children in military detention. All of these children must be released and reunited with their families immediately.”
The Zikim area, northwest of Gaza, has become a flashpoint of desperation where Palestinians seek aid from trucks crossing in from Israel.
According to the World Food Programme, Israel allows 45 trucks a day to enter the crossing, but in reality, the number is often lower.
Crowds rush the trucks on arrival, leading to fatal chaos. More than 550 people have been killed in the area while trying to access food, most shot by Israeli snipers, others crushed under the trucks.
Among those missing is 12-year-old Musab Hussein Ziad Alyan, who vanished on 2 August after being last seen following people carrying food toward Zikim.
His mother told DCIP she believes he was taken while trying to collect food left behind by the army.
“On one occasion, Musab shared with me that he had come very near to the [Israeli] army and witnessed them eating bread and drinking cola,” she said. “He mentioned he was planning to ask them for some food because he was extremely hungry.”
Zain Suhail Said Dahman, 16, disappeared on 27 July after heading to Zikim in search of flour. His mother said he had been detained by Israeli forces at the crossing the day before his disappearance.
“They were calling out to the army for flour. The army instructed them to come closer, leading them to believe that help was on the way. However, as soon as they approached, the army detained them without providing any water or food,” she said.
Other missing boys include Ibrahim Mohammad Abu Zaher, 15, last seen on 17 July near Israeli tanks at Zikim; Khaled Ramzi Adnan Saleh, 13, who disappeared alongside his adult brother Luai while collecting firewood on 15 July; and Anas Eid Mahmoud Al-Sayed, 14, who went missing on 24 June after Israeli gunfire broke out as he sought aid with his cousin.
The boys’ families continue to search daily.
“Each day, we go back when new bodies are brought in, yet I fear he may not be a martyr,” said Zain’s mother.
Under international law, the abduction or enforced disappearance of children is prohibited. DCIP said the transfer of Palestinian detainees, including children, to prisons inside Israel violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and amounts to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The group warned that Israel’s widespread practice of enforced disappearance was “exactly what the Israeli army forces are practising by penetrating in all areas of the Gaza Strip, where they have arrested hundreds, and continue to hold many of them in Israeli military prisons, along with thousands of Palestinian people whose fate is still unknown”.
