Thousands in Gaza are missing 2 years into the war. Tormented families search for clues

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza City (AP) — When Israeli bombs began falling, Mohammad al-Najjar, his wife and six children fled their house in southern Gaza in the dead of night, dispersing in terror alongside hundreds of others from their neighborhood.

When the dust settled and al-Najjar huddled with his family in a shelter miles away, his son Ahmad, 23, was missing. After daybreak, the family searched nearby hospitals and asked neighbors if they had seen him.

There was no trace. Nearly two years later, they are still looking.

“It is as if the earth has swallowed him,” said Mohammad al-Najjar. He spoke from the family’s tent in Muwasi, along Gaza’s southern coast, their ninth displacement camp since that fateful night in December 2023.

Thousands in Gaza are looking for relatives who are missing in one of the most destructive wars of the past decades. Some are buried under destroyed buildings. Others, like al-Najjar’s son, simply disappeared during Israeli military operations.

In a war where the true number of the dead is unknown, “what the accurate number (of missing persons) is, nobody knows," said Kathryne Bomberger, director general of the International Commission on Missing Persons.

The al-Najjar family has searched through the rubble of their bombed-out home. They went to morgues and checked with the International Committee for the Red Cross.

“Is he a prisoner (in Israel), is he dead?” the 46-year-old father said. “We are lost. We are tormented by everything.”

The Israeli Prison Services and the military said they could not release identifying details about specific prisoners and refused to comment on al-Najjar’s status.

Some 6,000 people have been reported by relatives to still be buried under rubble, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The true number is likely thousands higher because in some cases entire families were killed in a single bombing, leaving no one to report the missing, said Zaher al-Wahidi, the ministry official in charge of data.

Separately, the ministry received reports from families of some 3,600 others missing, al-Wahidi said, their fate unknown. So far, it has only investigated over 200 cases. Of them, seven were found detained by Israel. The others were not among those known to be dead or buried under rubble.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. The U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be reliable.

The ICRC has its own separate list of missing — at least 7,000 cases still unresolved, not including those believed to be under rubble, said chief spokesman Christian Cardon.

There have been many ways to disappear during the chaos of offensives, strikes on buildings and mass displacements of almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million people. Hundreds have been detained at Israeli checkpoints or were rounded up in raids with no notification to their families. Experts commissioned by a U.N. body and major rights groups have accused Israel of genocide, charges it vehemently denies.

During Israeli ground assaults, bodies have been left in the streets. Palestinians have been shot when they came too close to Israeli military zones and their bodies are found weeks or months later, decomposed.

The Israeli military has taken an unknown number of bodies, saying it is searching for Israeli hostages or Palestinians it identifies as militants. It has returned several hundred corpses with no identification to Gaza, where they were buried in anonymous mass graves.

Investigating the missing requires advanced DNA technology, samples from families and unidentified bodies, and aerial imagery to locate burial sites and mass graves, said Bomberger. “It is such an enormous undertaking,” she said.

But Israel has restricted DNA-testing supplies from entering Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Israeli military authorities would not immediately comment when asked if they were banned.

Bomberger said it is the state’s responsibility to find missing persons — in this case, Israel, as the occupying power. “So it would depend on the political will of the Israeli authorities to want to do something about it.”

Fadwa al-Ghalban has had no word about her 27-year-old son Mosaab since July, when he went to get food from their family house, believing Israeli troops had already left the area near the southern town of Maan.

His cousins nearby saw Mosaab lying on the ground. They shouted his name, but he didn’t answer, and with Israeli troops nearby it was too unsafe to approach him and they left. They presumed he was dead.

Returning later, family members found no body, only his slippers.

Her family has put up notices on social media, hoping someone saw Mosaab in Israeli detention or buried him.

Al-Ghalban lives off hope. Another relative had been presumed dead, then four days after the family formally received those giving condolences, they learned he was in an Israeli prison.

Whatever her son's fate, “there is a fire in my heart,” al-Ghalban said. “Even if someone buried him, it is much easier than this fire.”

Rights groups say Israel is “disappearing” hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza, detaining them without charges or trial, often incommunicado.

Israel does not make public the number being held, except through Freedom of Information Act requests. Under a wartime revision to Israeli law, detainees from Gaza can be held without any judicial review for 75 days and denied lawyers for even longer. Appearances before a judge usually take place in secret via video.

The Israeli human rights group Hamoked obtained records showing that, as of September, 2,662 Palestinians from Gaza were held in Israeli prisons, in addition to a few hundred others detained in army facilities where rights groups, the U.N. and detainees have reported routine abuse and torture.

All al-Ghalban has left of her son is his last change of clothes. She refuses to wash them.

“I keep smelling them. I want a scent of him,” she said, her voice cracking into tears. “I keep imagining him coming, walking toward me in the tent. I say he is not dead.”

With most of Gaza's bulldozers destroyed, families must search on their own through wreckage, hoping to find even the bones of lost loved ones.

Khaled Nassar’s daughter, Dalia, 28, and his son, Mahmoud, 24, were killed in separate airstrikes, leaving both buried under their homes in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

Rescue workers have largely been unable to access Jabaliya, which was hit by repeated strikes, raids and ground offensives and is now under Israeli military control and off-limits.

Dalia and her husband were killed in their home on Oct. 9, 2023, the third day of the war. Her children survived. They now live with their grandfather.

“We searched and we could not find her,” Nassar said. “She seemed to have evaporated with the rocket.”

A year later, Israel struck the family’s home, burying Mahmoud, who had returned to shower in the house after the family had evacuated.

When the ceasefire began in January, Nassar and his wife Khadra went to search for him. Every day, the 60-year-old father of 10, a former construction worker, used a hammer, shovel and small tools to chip away at the rubble. His wife carried away buckets of sand and debris.

They dug through half the house and found nothing. Then Israel broke the ceasefire in March and they had to flee.

Khadra refuses to despair. If there is a new ceasefire, she will resume digging, she said, “even if I only find (Mahmoud’s) ring on his finger or some bones to put in a grave to call it my son’s.”

This story was first published on Oct. 7, 2025. It was updated on Oct. 10, 2025 to correct that Kathryne Bomberger, director general of the International Commission on Missing Persons, did not say that Israel has restricted DNA-testing supplies from entering Gaza. It was the Gaza Health Ministry that said that.

El Deeb reported from Beirut. AP correspondents Mel Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Julia Frankel in New York, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, and Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo contributed to this report.

Ruins of apartments destroyed by Israeli strikes litter the area next to Khaled Nassar's home in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza City Feb. 9, 2025. Nassar's daughter, Dalia, and his son, Mahmoud, were killed in separate airstrikes, leaving both buried under their homes. (AP Photo/Abdel Hana)

Khaled Nassar looks over the destruction at his apartment in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza City Feb. 9, 2025. Nassar's daughter, Dalia, and his son, Mahmoud, were killed in separate airstrikes, leaving both buried under their homes. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Fadwa al-Ghalban holds a cellphone showing a photo of her son, Mosaab, at her tent in Muwasi, along Gaza's southern coast, Oct. 3, 2025. She has had no word from him since July, when his cousins last saw him near their house as an Israeli strike destroyed it in the southern town of Maan. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Fadwa al-Ghalban holds clothes belonging to her son, Mosaab, at her tent in Muwasi, along Gaza's southern coast, Oct. 3, 2025. Fadwa has had no word from Mosaab since July, when his cousins last saw him near their house as an Israeli strike destroyed it in the southern town of Maan. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Mohammad and Tahani al-Najjar hold a cellphone showing a picture of their son, Ahmad, at their family's tent in Muwasi, along Gaza's southern coast, Feb. 22, 2025. Nearly two years after Ahmad went missing following Israeli bombardment, the al-Najjars are still searching for him. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration's massive immigration crackdown.

The president's threat comes a day after a federal immigration officer shot and wounded a Minneapolis man who had attacked the officer with a shovel and broom handle. That shooting further heightened the fear and anger radiating across the Minnesota city since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a Renee Good in the head.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said in social media post.

The Associated Press has reached out to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down. ICE is a DHS agency.

In Minneapolis, smoke filled the streets Wednesday night near the site of the latest shooting as federal officers wearing gas masks and helmets fired tear gas into a small crowd. Protesters responded by throwing rocks and shooting fireworks.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference that the gathering was an unlawful assembly and “people need to leave.”

Things later quietened down and by early Thursday only a few demonstrators and law enforcement officers remained at the scene.

Demonstrations have become common on the streets of Minneapolis since the ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Good on Jan. 7. Agents have yanked people from their cars and homes, and have been confronted by angry bystanders demanding that the officers pack up and leave.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey described the situation as not “sustainable.”

“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order,” he said.

Frey said the federal force — five times the size of the city’s 600-officer police force — has “invaded” Minneapolis, scaring and angering residents.

In a statement describing the events that led to Wednesday's shooting, Homeland Security said federal law enforcement officers stopped a driver from Venezuela who is in the U.S. illegally. The person drove away and crashed into a parked car before taking off on foot, DHS said.

After officers reached the person, two other people arrived from a nearby apartment and all three started attacking the officer, according to DHS.

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said.

The two people who came out of the apartment are in custody, it said.

O’Hara said the man shot was in the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.

The shooting took place about 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers) north of where Good was killed. O’Hara's account of what happened largely echoed that of Homeland Security.

During a speech before the latest shooting, Walz described Minnesota as being in chaos, saying what's happening in the state “defies belief.”

“Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”

Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who killed Good, suffered internal bleeding to his torso during the encounter, a Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.

The official spoke to AP on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Ross’ medical condition. The official did not provide details about the severity of the injuries, and the agency did not respond to questions about the extent of the bleeding, exactly how he suffered the injury, when it was diagnosed or his medical treatment.

Good was killed after three ICE officers surrounded her SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from her home.

Bystander video shows one officer ordering Good to open the door and grabbing the handle. As the vehicle begins to move forward, Ross, standing in front, raises his weapon and fires at least three shots at close range. He steps back as the SUV advances and turns.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said Ross was struck by the vehicle and that Good was using her SUV as a weapon — a self-defense claim that has been criticized by Minnesota officials.

Chris Madel, an attorney for Ross, declined to comment.

Good’s family has hired the same law firm that represented George Floyd’s family in a $27 million settlement with Minneapolis. Floyd, who was Black, died after a white police officer pinned his neck to the ground in the street in May 2020.

Madhani reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press reporters Julie Watson in San Diego; Rebecca Santana in Washington; Ed White in Detroit and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis contributed.

A protester yells in front of law enforcement after a shooting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Tear gas surrounds federal law enforcement officers as they leave a scene after a shooting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Protesters shout at law enforcement officers after a shooting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Law enforcement officers stand amid tear gas at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)