Ashjan Abdel Aal and her husband Rafaat have spent more than a year searching for their sons, Othman and Sami, who disappeared after leaving their displaced family’s home in Gaza City on June 29, 2025. Othman, now 17, and Sami, 13, said they were heading to an aid distribution point near the so-called Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza and may have intended to visit their former home in Shujayea. They never returned.

Rafaat searched hospitals, displacement shelters and relatives without finding them. Reports of unidentified bodies near the family home and at al-Ahli Arab Hospital could not be confirmed as the boys. In May, the family was told by an alleged lawyer that the brothers were alive in Israeli detention at Ofer and Naqab prisons, but the claim was never officially verified and the lawyer could not be reached.

Gaza’s Government Media Office estimates about 11,200 people remain missing across the territory. The ICRC says it has thousands of open tracing requests but has had no access to Israeli detention sites since October 2023, limiting its ability to confirm detentions. The family says it wants one certain answer about the boys’ fate.