Around 1,000 Palestinian workers remain forcibly disappeared in Israel: NGO

GAZA CITY, Palestine

Nearly 1,000 Palestinian workers remain forcibly disappeared in Israel, a Palestinian nongovernmental organization said on Wednesday.

In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said around 10,300 workers had entered Israel before Oct. 7, 2023.

“Some 3,200 workers were released by Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing in November, while 6,441 others had left for the West Bank,” the statement read.

“Around 1,000 workers remain missing,” the NGO said, adding that Israel refuses to disclose any information about the fate of these missing workers.

Israeli human rights group (HaMoked) said on Wednesday that some 9,088 Palestinian detainees are held in Israeli jails.

Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas last Oct. 7, which killed some 1,200 people.

More than 34,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and thousands injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala