Safa Saber Sadi Jundiya: 

He disappeared on Monday, September 29, 2024, at 5:53 p.m. We were in Deir al-Balah. That was the last time I saw him. and he told me he was going to Gaza. 

Narrator: 

Safa Jundiya is one of thousands. According to the UN, since October 2023 over 11,000 Palestinians have gone missing in Gaza. Relatives don’t know if the missing are dead or alive, under the rubble or in Israeli detention centers. 

Safa Saber Sadi Jundiya: 

I lost my husband about a year and four months ago. I lost him when he was trying to return to the Gaza Strip via the south. Now I live with my children without my husband. 

Narrator: 

This is Safa’s son, Tamer. 12 years of age now, he was 11 when his father disappeared. 

Tamer Mohamed Nayef Jundiya: 

When he left, we said goodbye. He kissed each of us and said: Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a few hours. We told him, “OK but don’t be long because we can’t go to sleep or wake up without you.” He said: “Don’t worry”. 

Safa Saber Sadi Jundiya: 

We had lunch together, we chatted, we talked, we laughed, and suddenly he told me that he wanted to go on a trip. I asked: Where to? He said he wanted to go back to the north of the Strip because we were in Deir al-Balah. I said: it’s not possible for anyone to return to Gaza City; it was well known that there were tanks, planes, and snipers everywhere. No one, not even an ant, could cross to the north. He told me that he just wanted to scope out the place, to see the area. He was feeling nostalgic because his family were in the north. After I insisted that he not go, he said: “Don’t be afraid, I’ll be back… an hour and I’ll be back”.

Narrator: 

Since October 7th, Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law – a form of administrative detention, has allowed it to arbitrarily detain thousands of Palestinians. The law limits access to lawyers, allows incarceration without charge or trial, and crucially, the identities of those detained under this law are not made public. This policy of mass, secret detention means families like Safa’s, stay stuck in limbo. 

Safa Saber Sadi Jundiya: 

I left no institution, lawyer, authority, or association that I didn’t go to. The only single response that I received was “Not Detained. No Information Available”. Last week, I contacted a lawyer privately and paid them to search for my husband, they told me that he is not detained. But as to any evidence of him either still being around or – god forbid – not around, we haven’t found any. 

Safa Saber Sadi Jundiya: 

There‘s been unconfirmed and uncertain news, just rumours. After the last deal a month or two ago, around 3 prisoners said that my husband was in Ofer prison. But they only say that they heard his name, not that they saw him. When I showed a picture to other prisoners they told me that they hadn’t seen him. Only that they heard his name. Nothing more. 

I still feel inside that Muhammad is here. When I have moments of despair. Moments of weakness, moments of deficiency, I tell myself Mohammed is still alive, he will come back and he will be with you. 

I used to be desperate before, I want him, I want him, I want him, to the point that all I cared about – my only thought – was getting him back. At some point I said: “No, stop. Take a step back. There are children in your life. He is in God’s hands, alive or not, you have to pay attention to your children.” 

Tamer Mohamed Nayef Jundiya: 

Our life before the war was beautiful. We used to play and hang out with other kids. Water never used to leak on us, before the war, when it rained. And we had access to water. Now we have no access to water and the rain water flooded us. We don’t know what to do.

Narrator: 

For people in Gaza, hope is torturous but necessary. Scenes of ‘Forgotten’ prisoners emerging after decades incarceration, returning to families who had long since mourned them as dead have become common. And it works the other way too: like photojournalist Shadi Abu Sido who was detained in Gaza. As well as being beaten and tortured he was told that his wife and children were killed in air strikes, only to discover that they were both alive and well after his release. 

Safa Saber Sadi Jundiya: 

I used to tell them he’ll be back by Ramadan. When Ramadan ended, I told them he’ll be back by Eid. Eid came and went, and he didn’t come. “Daddy didn’t come.” I said it’s okay, God will bring him back to us, one day. 

I tell them: either way – if your father was a martyr, then he is in heaven. If he is still alive, and a prisoner then one day we will find him and he will return to us and we will live together again. That’s how I am with my children now. 

For my kids, special occasions with their father were something beyond imagination. He used to shower them with things. 

Tamer Mohamed Nayef Jundiya: 

My father was the best of the best. Before the war. He would buy us everything we asked for. And pamper us. How is life for you now? Now? Nothing. No life at all. There is no life. Why? Because we don’t have our dad. 

Safa Saber Sadi Jundiya: 

There is no life. Without him there is no life. Let me tell you something. To live your life with only half a heart or no heart at all. Living without a heart: it’s difficult. 

My husband was my father, my brother, my friend, my companion, everything to me. The week before he left, I was in an envious situation, because we were living a life almost like newlyweds, deeply in love. With affection, consideration: all that is encompassed in the word “love”, existed between us during that period. So I thank God for that, it could be He is trying to compensate me, allowing me the best memories of him before he left us.

Tamer Mohamed Nayef Jundiya: 

I wish my dad would come back. That things go back to how they were before the war, that we get our house back and everything goes back to how it was before the war.