THE Palestinian Centre for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared has called on the international community to take serious and effective action to compel Israel to reveal the fate of Palestinians forcibly disappeared in its prisons and to provide information about the missing, including mass and temporary graves established inside or outside the Gaza Strip.
In a statement released on Sunday, the centre said August 30th, marked as the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, is an occasion to highlight the tragedy faced by at least 8,000 Palestinian families who have lost a loved one during Israel’s ongoing military aggression against Gaza, now approaching two years.
The statement noted that this occasion comes as Palestinians are enduring one of the most brutal manifestations of this tragedy in Gaza, especially following nearly two years of what it described as a genocidal war launched by Israel since October 7th, 2023.
According to the centre, thousands of families have lost multiple members, some arrested and transferred by Israeli forces to unknown locations inside Israel, while others have vanished following military raids, home bombings, or during forced displacement.
The centre emphasised that thousands of Palestinian families are still desperately seeking any clue regarding their loved ones’ fate, some of whom are held arbitrarily in Israeli prisons without legal oversight, others forcibly disappeared under inhumane conditions, or trapped under rubble with no permission granted for their bodies to be recovered, or buried in unidentified graves established by the occupation.
The centre warned that Israel’s recent announcement of a new military operation in southern, eastern, and northern neighbourhoods of Gaza, as part of its plan to occupy the city and impose military control, foreshadows a growing list of missing and forcibly disappeared individuals. It stressed that this phenomenon has become more visible during Israel’s large-scale incursions and settlement in various parts of Gaza to carry out complex war crimes.
The centre reiterated that enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity under international law, exposing Israel’s systematic policy to erase the identity of victims and deny their families the right to truth.
It further explained that denying families access to information about the fate of their loved ones, or the ability to recover and bury their bodies with dignity, deepens their daily suffering and prolongs their grief indefinitely.
The centre also reported receiving hundreds of alerts regarding missing individuals in areas of Israeli incursion or near aid distribution points set up by the occupation in Rafah and southern Gaza City.
It stressed that Israel’s systematic targeting of civil defence teams and repeated destruction of their equipment has severely hindered their ability to rescue or recover victims from under rubble caused by constant bombardment.
The ongoing crisis of the missing and forcibly disappeared in Palestine, the centre said, is further evidence of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. It emphasised that uncovering the truth and ending enforced disappearances is a non-negotiable human right, and that silence on such crimes amounts to complicity in their continuation.
In conclusion, the Palestinian Centre for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared called on the international community to take immediate and effective action to compel Israel to reveal the fate of all missing and forcibly disappeared Palestinians since the start of the aggression and prior.
It also urged that international organisations, particularly the International Committee of the Red Cross, be granted unconditional access to detainees and prisoners.
The TUC Congress begins on Sunday September 7th at 4pm at the Brighton Conference Centre.
The News Line and the WRP urges trade unionists to lobby the TUC in their thousands on that day and to demand that the TUC calls for and organises a general strike of the UK working class as well as calling for trade union organisations worldwide from the EU to the USA to take general strike action.
The butchering of the Palestinians must be stopped, and the TUC and the world trade union movement must lead the way by calling indefinite general strikes. The TUC has the power and the purpose to bring down the Starmer government and to bring in a Workers Government whose first task will be to insist that Israel retreats to within its boundaries, and that the Zionist leadership stands trial for its crimes and that the Palestinian masses are able to establish a Palestinian Workers Government. This is is a vital task. Fascists cannot be allowed to enslave the people of Gaza!
