Families' agonising search for answers as thousands still missing in Gaza

Ahmed al Madhoun looked like a man who, despite the hardship, loved life. A cheeky, chunky little fellow with an exuberant smile. From her partially destroyed home in Gaza City, his mother Majdiya shows us videos of him on her phone.

In one, Ahmed is cuddling a kitten. He sticks out his tongue and squeals with glee. In another, he belly flops into a swimming pool, before emerging from the water grinning from ear to ear.

"Everyone was his friend," Majdiya tells the BBC. "He was loved wherever he went, and he always had a smile on his face." But Ahmed, who has Down's syndrome, is missing. The 21-year-old disappeared in May 2025 after popping to the local shop.

At the time, the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel was raging. That day there were Israeli strikes in the area, and Majdiya fears her son is dead. But she doesn't know for certain.

"My God, I am not at peace," she says. "I have not lost hope but whether they find him alive or dead, buried under the rubble, only then will I be at peace." Pain like Majdiya's is felt by mothers all over Gaza. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign, including about 1,200 since a ceasefire was announced last October, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry - figures considered reliable by the UN.

Israeli media reported in January that a senior Israeli security source said the military accepts the figures are accurate. But the true number of dead Palestinians could be significantly higher. The health ministry's death toll doesn't count bodies buried under the rubble, meaning many of the missing are not part of the count.