The War on Gaza: Forced Displacement and the Reshaping of Life

The war on the Gaza Strip represents one of the greatest humanitarian challenges facing the world, dramatically and rapidly altering daily life. Among the most notable changes are forced evacuations, which serve as a clear indicator of the sector’s accelerating transformations. The map of displacement has become increasingly complex and painful during the conflict.

According to the latest displacement statistics since the renewed aggression in March 2025, over 646,934 people were forced to flee again. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reports that 2 million Palestinians have been displaced during the war, meaning that 90% of Gaza’s population was compelled to leave their homes due to aerial bombardments and ground invasions, according to UN reports. The reasons behind the evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army are multiple, often carried out in areas of strategic importance, with military operations dictating evacuation routes, particularly in sensitive border zones, forcing thousands of families into forced displacement without safe alternatives.

The escalation of military operations and shifting battlefronts lead to drastic changes in population distribution. Entire areas are frequently evacuated due to intensified fighting or anticipated threats, complicating humanitarian response efforts and making accurate data collection on displaced populations and their locations difficult.

In Gaza, an address no longer simply signifies a “place of residence”; it is now directly linked to the internal displacement crisis, determined entirely by the realities of war and the changing conditions on the ground.

Displacement Paths: From Surprise to Peak

Tracking the timeline of population movements during the war reveals a complex pattern closely tied to military escalations, both aerial and ground, as well as repeated evacuation orders.

Displacement waves began in the early stages of the war, specifically with the onset of intense military operations in October 2023, when approximately half a million people fled from Gaza City and northern Gaza to the southern and central areas due to heavy bombardment. As operations expanded in November, displacement reached its peak, exceeding 1.2 million people, eventually surpassing 1.5 million with continued bombing and ground incursions.

According to the latest UN-led assessments of recent displacement patterns, around 1.6 million displaced persons are staying in temporary shelters, while over 600,000 live in tents lacking basic humanitarian necessities. The health situation is dire; according to statements by Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the healthcare sector is completely collapsed, with 25 out of 35 hospitals out of service, and only 51 health centers functioning out of 72, increasing the hardships for displaced people seeking medical care.

As the conflict escalated, many facilities—primarily UNRWA schools and government schools—were converted into temporary shelters for tens of thousands of families. When no accommodation was available, some displaced families turned to beaches or relatives’ homes, causing severe overcrowding in the least targeted areas.

Life inside these shelters is far from easy. Classrooms became overcrowded, corridors were packed with families, and essential services such as food, water, and healthcare were largely absent, while the danger remained omnipresent due to repeated targeting incidents.

Voices from the Displaced

Umm Nabil, a displaced woman from the Zaytoun neighborhood, says: “We were displaced ten times in four months. Each time we thought the place was safe, only to find ourselves under new threats. I feel like I’ve lived without an address for months.”

Umm Khaled, a displaced woman from northern Gaza, recalls: “At first, I went with my children to my brother’s house in Safatawi, but as the bombing escalated, we had to move to Al-Dhiyyan School in Sheikh Radwan. Today, 12 of us live in a cramped classroom, with barely enough food or water. Life has become impossible.”

Women have borne a double burden, caring for children and securing basic necessities in an environment of total collapse. Children have lost access to schools, which were converted into shelters, experiencing fear, anxiety, and the absence of education, leaving deep psychological scars.

Sami, a young man from Beit Lahia, recounts for the Palestinian Displacement Observatory that his brother’s wedding was held in a small tent without electricity or food for guests. Abu Youssef, a displaced man from Shuja’iyya, shares from his shelter on the Khan Younis beach: “My home was completely destroyed. I moved to the beach, but it’s far worse than the schools—no water, no food, no security at all.”

Many families have resorted to tents set up in public squares and parks, undermining privacy and human dignity. People were stripped of basic living conditions amid cramped, open tents, facing poor sanitation, disease outbreaks, and no access to healthcare.

Legal Dimension: Forced Evacuation as a Violation

Bakr Al-Turkmani, Coordinator for Investigations and Complaints at the Independent Commission for Human Rights, emphasizes that the right to housing and movement is fundamental to human dignity, yet in Gaza it has become a distant dream due to ongoing military operations. He notes: “Forced evacuation without prior warning, or without safe routes and alternative shelter, constitutes one of the gravest violations,” adding: “What is happening in Gaza fails to meet the minimum standards of international humanitarian law.”

According to Al-Turkmani, the Israeli occupation bears full legal responsibility for the safety of civilians ordered to leave, including providing essential services, ensuring protection during transit, and preventing attacks. However, reality in Gaza reflects the opposite.

Despite the harsh reality, accountability mechanisms remain open for crimes committed, including forced evacuation, forming a legal basis for prosecution in international courts.

Displacement Reshaping Gaza

The demographic impact of displacement in Gaza is significant. Thousands of families now live in close quarters in displacement camps and shelters. Some displaced families have intermarried within the camps. Wealthier families seek new housing for young married children in neighborhoods or buildings untouched by bombing, resulting in a population shift across governorates.

Residents from border areas (east and north Gaza) look for safer locations far from prior or potential dangers, causing fundamental changes in population distribution. This may be temporary if the war ends with a long-term political settlement, or permanent if a truce is reached without guarantees.

Dr. Imad Mohsen, a political researcher and media analyst, notes: “The likely outcome of this war is a reduced urban space in Gaza. Entire neighborhoods or governorates were destroyed, while other areas remained habitable, inevitably leading to major demographic changes in the governorates and across Gaza.”

He adds that the pace of reconstruction and the restoration of infrastructure and basic services will determine whether people remain in their original locations or relocate elsewhere.

Nostalgia for Neighborhoods, Homes, and Neighbors

For many Palestinians, a neighborhood is more than a residence; it embodies personal and collective memory, daily social ties, and communal life. Wide-scale destruction has threatened this memory.

Umm Osama says: “Our neighbor, Umm Ihab, used to bring us coffee every morning—I don’t know if she is still alive. The house was not just walls; it held stories and relationships.”

Sara, 16, adds: “Every move feels like a part of my identity is being uprooted. The house is more than a place to sleep; it’s where I learned, played, and left my laughter and sadness.”

Neighborhoods give people a sense of security. Abu Mohammed says the repeated displacement has robbed him of safety and stability. Umm Yamen adds: “Our home was a refuge, but now it’s destroyed. In losing it, we lost part of ourselves. Even our neighbors, whom we saw daily, are now far away.”

Given this reality, reconstruction is more than restoring homes and infrastructure; it must include rebuilding social relationships destroyed by the war. A place regains meaning only when its collective memory is restored.

Documenting Memory

There is a pressing need for wide-scale initiatives to document testimonies, record stories, and establish archival centers to preserve Palestinian memory from obliteration, helping people reclaim a sense of belonging despite the widespread destruction.

Here’s a comprehensive English translation of your text, keeping the formal, academic, and human-rights-focused tone intact:

Introduction

The issue of forcibly disappeared persons represents one of the most complex and painful human rights challenges in the Palestinian context. It involves a deep intertwining of long-term colonial occupation, recurring armed conflicts, enforced disappearance policies, and systematic denial of truth and justice. A forcibly disappeared person is not merely someone absent from their family or social environment; they embody a complex legal and humanitarian reality that transcends physical absence to encompass the deprivation of rights, suspension of fate, and perpetuation of suffering over time.

The phenomenon of enforced disappearances becomes particularly severe in the absence of effective mechanisms for independent investigation, when families are denied the right to know, access to detention or burial sites is blocked, and international and humanitarian organizations are obstructed. This transforms enforced disappearance from an individual act into a structural policy used as a tool of collective deterrence and social fragmentation in Palestinian society.

Enforced disappearances in the Palestinian context have taken multiple and overlapping forms, including:

• Persons who disappeared during military operations and large-scale invasions,
• Detainees whose fate or place of detention remains unknown,
• Individuals lost under rubble in combat zones without the possibility for families to access or verify their whereabouts,
• Persons disappeared in the context of forced displacement and the complete collapse of institutional and humanitarian infrastructure, particularly in Gaza since the outbreak of the Israeli genocidal war in October 2023.

The humanitarian impact of enforced disappearance extends beyond the missing individual to affect entire families. Families of the disappeared live in a constant state of “ambiguous loss,” a concept recognized in psychological and human rights literature, which reflects ongoing suffering caused by uncertainty, the impossibility of mourning, and the suspension of legal and social life. Wives remain legally suspended, children are deprived of family stability, and families exist in a liminal space of hope and despair without official recognition or legal protection.

In the Palestinian context, enforced disappearance carries a compounded political and legal dimension due to its direct link to occupation policies, impunity systems, and the limited capacity of Palestinian authorities for access, documentation, and accountability. The escalation of wars, widening destruction, and restrictions on the operations of international organizations have deepened the knowledge gap regarding the number of disappeared, the circumstances of their disappearance, and their potential fates, threatening to render them “nameless victims” in the international narrative.

Any approach to addressing enforced disappearances in Palestine cannot remain confined to narrow humanitarian perspectives; it requires a comprehensive rights-based approach that integrates legal documentation, psychosocial support for families, international accountability, and the guarantee of the right to truth, justice, and reparations. The disappeared are not mere numbers in reports; they represent an ethical and legal issue touching the core of human dignity, a test of the international community’s commitment to its stated principles in protecting human beings during conflicts.

Accordingly, this paper seeks to discuss the issue of forcibly disappeared persons in the Palestinian context, as one of the most complex and urgent humanitarian issues in an ongoing war, and to explore potential scenarios for addressing the matter, offering policy and procedural recommendations for relevant stakeholders within national and international frameworks.

Methodology

This paper relies on a descriptive-analytical approach to trace the phenomenon of enforced disappearances in Palestine and on a forward-looking approach to provide a comprehensive national vision of the tools, mechanisms, and roles necessary to address this sensitive humanitarian issue. Accordingly, the paper draws on analysis of all available documents, reports, and national plans related to the issue.

Objective of the Paper

The paper aims to shed light on the issue of enforced disappearances in Gaza during the genocide, examine the measures taken by all relevant parties in addressing this issue, present a Palestinian roadmap to mitigate the negative effects, and provide a set of potential scenarios for the Palestinian community regarding this matter.

Reality of Enforced Disappearances in the Palestinian Context

There is a significant disparity among different stakeholders regarding the number of forcibly disappeared persons in Palestine, reflecting the absence of unified and accurate data and the difficulty of verifying figures from multiple sources.

• A special report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights on enforced disappearances in Gaza noted that there is no precise number of missing Palestinians, but estimates suggest thousands. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, by July 2025, over 11,000 Palestinians were missing, including 4,700 women and children. The Gaza Government Media Office reported at least 14,222 Palestinians missing or trapped under rubble as of February 2025.
• UN reports mention around 4,000 missing persons during the two years of war.
• The Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons estimates 8,000–9,000 missing persons in Gaza, while official reports record approximately 5,000 cases.
• The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights estimated that the actual number of forcibly disappeared during the genocide ranges between 8,000–21,000, indicating vast discrepancies.
• The Palestinian Prisoners Club reported 1,000 Palestinian workers from Gaza forcibly disappeared inside Israel since October 7, with no confirmed information on their fate.

These variations stem from the lack of unified registration, difficulties in field verification, official non-disclosure policies by Israeli authorities, the chaotic environment resulting from two years of genocide, and the targeting of rescue teams. They are also compounded by the absence of coordinated Palestinian mechanisms and unclear references for documenting enforced disappearances.

Causes of Data Discrepancies

The reality of enforced disappearances in Gaza is genuine, complex, and tragic, yet estimating its scope suffers from extreme variability due to weak documentation, conflicting sources, non-disclosure policies, and war conditions. Key causes include:

1. Multiple reference points and absence of unified standards: No national database exists for enforced disappearances; information is managed by multiple bodies (local government, human rights organizations, UN, prisoner organizations) with differing definitions.
2. Institutional and archival gaps: Poor coordination, weak archiving, and lack of advanced verification tools hinder data linkage.
3. Lack of technical expertise: Shortages in forensic analysis, data management, and specialized psychosocial support exacerbate the challenge.
4. Variations in information-gathering methods: Some estimates rely on official statistics, family reports, human rights investigations, or international approximations, explaining major disparities.
5. Diverse categories of disappearances: Includes detainees in Israeli prisons, persons under rubble, those lost during forced displacement, and those of unknown fate.

Fragile Reality of Addressing Enforced Disappearances in Gaza

The issue is not only a severe human rights violation but is compounded by the structural fragility of Palestinian institutions, worsened by the recent war. Overlapping types of disappearance and lack of information have created a gray area where humanitarian suffering intersects with institutional incapacity.

Key challenges:

1. Conceptual and institutional fragility: No comprehensive national framework aligned with international standards (e.g., International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance).
2. Limited local institutional capacity: Institutional exhaustion, politicization of rights work, and lack of internal accountability mechanisms.
3. Insufficient international response: International organizations focus on emergency relief, with limited engagement on protection, documentation, or legal accountability.
4. War as a multiplier of institutional disappearance: Destruction of civil records, mass killings, and arbitrary detentions amplify structural disappearance.

Core Challenges in Addressing the Phenomenon

• Lack of clear information from official sources, especially Israeli authorities.
• Weak documentation systems producing contradictory data.
• Difficulty of field access due to ongoing bombardment and destruction.
• Non-disclosure policies and family reluctance due to fear of security reprisals.

Factors Exacerbating the Phenomenon

• Intensive bombardment and excessive destructive force.
• Undocumented and mass burials due to health system collapse.
• Repeated forced displacement and family fragmentation.
• Destruction of civil, medical, and institutional records.
• Undeclared detention and refusal to disclose locations.
• Absence of a unified national documentation and monitoring mechanism.

Impacts of Enforced Disappearances

Humanitarian Effects:

• Psychological torment of uncertainty (ambiguous loss).
• Family and social disintegration.
• Damage to collective memory and social roles.
• Weakening of community safety nets and economic strain.

Justice and Human Rights Implications:

• Obstruction of independent investigations and accountability.
• Violation of the right to life, legal recognition, and truth.

Institutional and Political Consequences:

• Weakening of institutional capacity.
• Erosion of trust in local and international frameworks.

Potential Consequences of Partial Approaches

Humanitarian/Psychological: Chronic, intergenerational trauma, normalization of suffering.
Social/Structural: Fragmentation of social fabric, weakened trust in institutions.
Legal/Rights-Based: Loss of evidence, impunity, failure of international accountability.
Political/Strategic: Weak Palestinian narrative internationally, reproduction of violence, erasure of disappeared from collective memory.

Possible Scenarios

Conclusion

Forcibly disappeared persons in Gaza are not merely a humanitarian issue or a side effect of war—they represent an open wound in society, a violation extending beyond the absence of bodies to the denial of truth, suspension of justice, and perpetuation of pain. The disappeared remain forcibly present in their families’ lives, in endless waiting, in mourning without graves, and within a legal system unable to fully recognize or redress the loss.

This phenomenon reveals a dual failure: the international protection system’s inability to prevent the crime or hold perpetrators accountable, and traditional humanitarian responses’ failure to treat the disappeared as a complex rights-based issue requiring legal, psychosocial, and informational tools. Addressing the issue requires a shift from emergency response to structured institutional justice, from relief to accountability, from empathy to actionable protection.

Recommendations

Policy Recommendations:

• Establish a unified national coordination mechanism for disappeared persons.
• Develop a centralized, secure database.
• Draft a specific national legal framework for enforced disappearance cases.
• Design long-term psychosocial support programs for families.
• Activate relevant UN and international mechanisms, ensuring accountability.
• Recognize forcibly disappeared persons legally and politically.
• Adopt a unified national definition covering all categories of disappeared persons.
• Link the issue to reconstruction and transitional justice programs.

Procedural/Operational Recommendations:

• Centralized digital database with secure information handling.
• Specialized field documentation teams trained to international standards.
• Support forensic identification and DNA testing.
• Establish family support centers (psychological-legal).
• Document family testimonies as legal evidence.
• Launch international advocacy campaigns based on data and verified stories.
• Integrate disappeared persons into humanitarian response plans (HRP/OCHA).

References

• United Nations: International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
• International Law & Policy: Legal Framework for the Disappeared
• Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons, “The Tragedy of the Disappeared: One of the Harshest Faces of the Genocide in Gaza,” October 2025
• Basma Abu Maamar, “Psychological and Social Effects of War on Gaza Residents,” Al-Araby Al-Hadeed, 27/10/2025