For 18 agonizing months, the family of Eid Nael Abu Shaar believed their eldest son was another casualty of the relentless war in Gaza. They had scoured hospitals, opened morgue refrigerators, and eventually obtained a formal death certificate from the Ministry of Health. They even erected a mourning tent to honor his memory. However, a sudden phone call from a lawyer has turned their world upside down, confirming that Eid is alive and being held in Israel’s notorious Ofer Prison, Al Jazeera reported.
Eid disappeared on December 15, 2024, while searching for work near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza. This area, frequently referred to as the "Axis of Death," has been a flashpoint where hundreds of Palestinians have gone missing or were killed by Israeli forces. His father, Nael Abu Shaar, recounted the desperate search to Al Jazeera, explaining how he spent nights at the doors of Al-Aqsa and Nuseirat hospitals, manually checking unidentified bodies in morgue refrigerators for any sign of his son.
Despite reaching out to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and various human rights organizations, the family hit a dead end. With no record of his detention, they were forced to accept the grim possibility of his death. Yet, Maha Abu Shaar, Eid’s mother, maintained a steadfast intuition. While others urged the family to perform the absentee funeral prayer, she refused, clinging to the belief that her son was still breathing. Her hope was validated recently when a released detainee reported seeing Eid in prison.
The news of Eid’s survival sparked a rare moment of celebration in a territory dominated by grief. Scenes broadcast by Al Jazeera showed neighbors and family members distributing sweets in their displacement tents, transforming a site of mourning into a celebration of what they describe as a "miracle." However, Eid’s case is a stark reminder of a much larger crisis. Thousands of families in the Gaza Strip remain in a state of "suspended grief," not knowing the fate of their loved ones.
According to Nada Nabil, director of the Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, approximately 7,000 to 8,000 Palestinians are currently missing. Among them, nearly 1,500 are believed to be victims of forced disappearances within the Israeli prison system. Nabil argued that Israel’s policy of withholding information about detainees is a deliberate psychological tactic intended to inflict collective punishment on Palestinian families. The lack of international pressure to compel Israel to follow humanitarian law has left these victims in a legal and social vacuum.
The emotional burden on these families is immense. For Maha Abu Shaar, the joy of knowing her son is alive is tempered by the fear of the conditions he faces in Ofer Prison, where reports of torture and mistreatment are widespread. While the Abu Shaar household celebrates today, the broader humanitarian catastrophe continues, with thousands of other mothers still waiting for a phone call that may never come, trapped between the fading hope of a return and the silent finality of the rubble.
