GAZA, (PIC)
In Gaza, leaving home doesn’t guarantee your return, and a morning goodbye isn’t just a fleeting moment. In this corner of the Earth, ordinary steps can turn into mysterious disappearances, and families become prisoners of harsh waiting, clinging to a glimmer of hope, asking a thousand times: “Where are they now?” This has been the case throughout the Israeli genocide.
Mohammad Raed Abu Said (26 years old) and Ahmad Yaseen Al-Louh (20 years old) are two young men who left one day and never returned, leaving behind hearts hanging and dreams suspended on the edge of absence.
A journey without return?
The morning of July 20, 2024, was an ordinary day for Mohammad, who left his home in the East Bureij Camp to fetch some supplies for his family. He had no idea he would not return, and that his family would live in a whirlpool of waiting and anticipation from that day forward.
As for Ahmad, he was a young man dreaming of becoming a human rights activist. He left on October 7, 2023, with his cousin to the Malaka area east of the Gaza Strip, driven by curiosity to see what was happening there, but he did not return, and his fate remains unknown to this day.
The unbearable absence
For Mohammad’s family, each day that passes without any news about him feels like an eternity of torment. His mother could not bear the shock of his disappearance, falling prey to illness and sorrow, and she has been in the hospital for months, struggling physically and emotionally between the hope of reunion and the terror of loss.
Maysara Al-Louh, Ahmad’s brother, lives with his parents on edge since his disappearance; anxiety never leaves them, and their minds are restless. “The thoughts are killing us,” says Maysara, questioning: “Where is he? Is he okay? Is he suffering? Will we hear his voice again?”
Questions without answers
The disappearance of the two young men opens the door to unanswered questions: Are they detained somewhere? Were they injured on the day they disappeared? Are they still alive?
In the face of this suffocating silence, both families appeal to local and international human rights organizations to uncover their fates, seeking a thread that might reassure their anxious hearts.
For Mohammad and Ahmad are not just numbers on a list of the missing; they are young men who carried unfinished dreams and stories that have yet to reach their conclusion, with families still living between hope and fear, repeating the same prayer every day: “O Lord, reassure us about them.”
