An April 23 report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated that dozens of children are disappearing weekly in Gaza amid post-war chaos. The article cited the Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, which estimated that 2,900 children went missing during the war, with 2,700 believed trapped under rubble and 200 still unaccounted for. The report linked these disappearances to Israel’s military operations, which have reportedly killed over 72,500 Palestinians since 2023, with thousands more missing.

Al Jazeera Arabic’s February investigation found at least 2,842 Palestinians had vanished since the war began, with Gaza’s civil defense blaming U.S.-made thermal and thermobaric weapons for vaporizing bodies. The Israeli military rejected these claims, asserting it uses only lawful weapons and targets military sites in compliance with international law. UN experts have previously condemned reports of enforced disappearances from aid centers in Gaza.

The article connected these disappearances to a broader global pattern of state-backed abductions, citing U.S. involvement in similar cases in Latin America and Mexico. It concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to an attempt to erase the Palestinian population’s very existence.