Lost childhood: The unknown fate of Gaza children abducted by Israeli forces amid war

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

Amid the ruins of a desolate home in Gaza, a baby's cries pierce the heavy silence. Alone in the wreckage, she lies fragile and defenseless, surrounded by the echoes of devastation.

Her tiny face, streaked with dust and sorrow, is a reflection of fear and confusion. In a world that has crumbled around her, she yearns for her mother’s warm embrace, for a soothing lullaby.

The United Nations’ reference to the “sea of orphaned children” in the besieged Gaza Strip shines light on a devastating reality: between 17,000 and 18,000 children have been left without family members as a result of the relentless, 15-month-long Israeli genocidal onslaught.

These young victims of the Israeli genocidal war, which has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, most of them children, now face a precarious future, devoid of support that every child needs and deserves.

Compounding the tragedy, disturbing accounts of orphaned or separated children abducted by Israeli regime soldiers during the war have emerged, with their fates remaining shrouded in uncertainty.

Following the death of Israeli military commander Harel Itah on December 30, 2023, in Gaza, accounts from his friends and relatives revealed a shocking incident: Itah had abducted a baby girl (and a dog) from Gaza and taken her to Israeli-occupied territories.

After Itah’s death, his friend Shahar Mendelson was interviewed on Galei Tzahal, the Israeli army’s radio station, recounting that Itah found a crying baby in Gaza and decided to “bring her back to Israel.”

“He talked to one of the friends during his time in Gaza and told him that in one of the houses he entered, he heard the crying of a baby girl, and he decided to send her to Israel,” Mendelson said.

Even Yael Dan, the radio show host, sounded puzzled by the story: “Wait for a moment, I think I misheard you,” she said repeating what Mendelson said in the interview. 

Galei Tzahal (Galatz) initially posted about the interview on December 31, 2023, but they soon deleted it. However, screenshots of the post remain available on X, formerly Twitter.

Many Israeli social media users urged Galatz to delete the post, saying that the revelation could be harmful to “Israeli Hasbara,” a Hebrew term for media propaganda.

Around the same time, Itah’s brother shared a similar account in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet radio show Kalman-Liberman. He detailed a story about an abandoned baby Harel had found in Gaza, whom “they drove back" to the occupied territories. 

“Harel discovered a Gazan baby girl amid the ruins. While they were searching the structures for information, he heard a noise and found the baby. Then, they drove her back to Israel," Itah’s brother was quoted as saying, recalling the incident. 

Ynet, an Israeli website, also cited the story in an article about Itah’s funeral on December 31, 2023.

The article revealed that the baby girl was likely taken to a hospital in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Ynet quoted one of Itah’s friends, who stated that Harel told him that he heard the cries of a baby girl in Gaza, and "he made sure that she was brought to a hospital in Israel for treatment.”

The troubling revelation raised concerns about the well-being of the child and sparked outrage over the conduct of Israeli occupation forces during the carnage in Gaza.

There have been calls for an investigation into the baby girl’s fate and the actions of the Israeli military.

Despite growing concerns and repeated calls for information, Israeli journalists and military officials have either kept mum about the issue or provided little clarity on the matter, with some even denying the existence of the child.

On January 1, 2024, Israeli journalist Nir Gontarz shared the Israeli military’s response regarding the fate of the abducted baby in an X post.

“We are not familiar with the described event during which a Gazan baby girl was brought to Israel for treatment and later returned to the Gaza Strip. Relevant parties are checking the source of the claim.”

However, none of the Israeli media reports had previously mentioned the child being returned to Gaza.

Nurit Yohanan, a reporter at the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan), asserted in an X post on January 2, 2024, that the Israeli military had no knowledge of the baby girl and that no such child from Gaza had been admitted to an Israeli hospital recently.

“For several days now, there has been talk of an [Israeli] soldier who found a baby girl from Gaza during fighting, and it was implied that she was brought into Israel," she wrote.

"I have no information about the baby’s rescue (the [military] doesn’t know about it), but no baby girl from Gaza has arrived at an Israeli hospital recently."

Roy Sharon, a military reporter based in occupied al-Quds, on January 2, 2024, quoted an unnamed Israeli military spokesperson on X saying that investigations have revealed that Itah’s friend had misheard the story and that he had rescued a dog from the rubble in Gaza, not a baby girl.

“After an investigation, no baby girl was taken from Gaza to Israeli territory. The claims of a baby girl being kidnapped are completely baseless. What happened? The late Captain Harel Itah rescued a dog from the rubble in Gaza and brought it to Israel. Somehow his friend mistakenly heard that it was a baby," the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

These conflicting reports and the lack of concrete information have left many questions unanswered, including the discrepancy between the accounts provided by Itah’s friends and relatives.

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The abduction of the baby girl from Gaza prompted the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand her release, condemning the actions of the Israeli soldier involved.

In a statement issued last January, the ministry emphasized that such actions “solidify the belief that the Israeli army is committing the worst crimes of genocide.”

On February 19, 2024, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also addressed the abduction of the baby girl in a report on human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls by occupation soldiers.

The UN experts expressed concern over the reports of an unknown number of Palestinian women and children, including girls, who have gone missing following their contact with the Israeli military in Gaza.

“There are disturbing reports of at least one female infant forcibly transferred by the Israeli army into Israel, and of children being separated from their parents, whose whereabouts remain unknown,” the experts noted in the report.

Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide the “forcible transfer of children of the group to another group” is classified as genocide if committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Since the revelation was made, no further details about the baby girl’s whereabouts or well-being have been disclosed or reported in the media.

Disturbingly, reports suggest that the Israeli military personnel have abducted dozens of other Palestinian children throughout the 471-day devastating war on Gaza.

On August 31, 2024, Younis Tirawi, a Palestinian journalist, reported that Doha Talat, an 8-year-old girl from Gaza, was abducted by Israeli soldiers near the Rafah crossing, south of Gaza, in late July.

Tirawi’s report highlighted a photo shared by Ido Zahar, a soldier from Israel’s 432nd Tzabar Battalion, showing him with Doha in Gaza, with none of her family members in sight.

Zahar subsequently deleted the post and made his account private to avoid attention. 

According to Tirawi, Doha was accompanied by an elderly man who was later detained by Israeli forces on allegations of having ties to Hamas. Since then, no information has surfaced regarding Doha’s whereabouts after she was separated from her companion.

On January 2, 2024, Rushdi al-Zara, a resident of Gaza City’s al-Zeitoun neighborhood, gave an interview that was widely circulated on social media platforms.

Al-Zara said Israeli soldiers conducted a raid on his house, during which his wife, Hadeel Youssef Issa Al Dahdouh, and their two children, 4-year-old Mohammad and 6-month-old Zain, were abducted.

He was himself detained for 25 days, and upon his release, he had no knowledge about the whereabouts of his wife and children.

Following the public outcry, the Israeli military was forced to release his children to northern Gaza, allowing him to establish contact with them. However, the whereabouts of his wife remain unknown.

On January 2, 2024, Muhammad Shehada, a Palestinian writer, analyst from the Gaza Strip, and Chief of Communications and Programs at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, shared a message from a doctor’s group chat in a post on X.

The message detailed the case of two Palestinian children, aged 5 and 8, who were separated from their parents in Gaza amid the Israeli aggression and transferred to Barzilai, an Israeli military hospital.

Shehada expressed concerns, questioning the lack of protocols for handling children found amid the war and the failure to immediately involve the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“Does the army have no protocols on dealing with kids found during the fighting? Why aren’t they handed to ICRC immediately?!” Shehada wrote.

Muath Humaid, a Palestinian architect, and interior designer, also took to X on January 4, 2024, to reveal the abduction of four children in al-Mughazi.

According to Humaid, the children were taken from their homes by occupation forces to an unknown location, with the eldest being just 13 years old.

“The occupation forces abducted 4 children from their mother from their home in the al-Mughazi area in central Gaza and took them to an unknown location. There is no information about them until now. The eldest among them is 13 years old,” Humaid wrote.

Maha Hussaini, a human rights activist, journalist, and Strategy Director at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, wrote about another unsettling aspect of Israel’s abduction of children.

Hussaini stated that she had documented multiple cases where Israeli regime soldiers abducted blonde children from Gaza under the pretext that they might be Israelis.

“As Israeli forces are nearing my area of refuge, I just actually told my brother’s wife to dye her blonde daughter’s hair black!” she wrote in a post on X.

Additionally, a photo of an Israeli occupation soldier holding a baby on a football field further fueled concerns about the welfare of abducted Palestinian children.

The White Rose Society, an anti-fascist research group, shared the image in a post on X on January 1, 2024, raising questions about the baby’s whereabouts.

They said that the child’s mother had been killed earlier in the war, and their father was later apprehended and stripped on a field.

“No one knows the fate of this baby either, someone said the baby’s mother was murdered earlier in the war, and the baby’s father was caring for it, then he was rounded up and stripped naked in a field,” the White Rose Society wrote.

Over the past 15 months of the genocidal war, which halted with a ceasefire deal on Sunday, a staggering number of children, estimated at 18,000, have lost their lives in the Gaza Strip.

A report published by Save the Children in June shed light on the concerning issue of missing children in Gaza, estimating that up to 21,000 children remain unaccounted for.

“Thousands are presumed dead beneath the rubble. Others have been harmed beyond recognition by explosives, buried in unmarked or mass graves, or gone missing in the chaos of conflict,” it noted.

The report further highlighted the alarming number of Gazans, including children, who have been detained, disappeared, or abducted. Estimates indicate that up to 3,000 individuals are currently held in Gaza, with an unknown number of children among them.

“Detainees have reported being held in secret locations with no way of contacting loved ones, being forcibly transferred to Israel, having their identity documents confiscated, and being treated with extreme physical, psychological, and sexual violence,” it added.

According to the report, an increasing number of Palestinians, including children, have reported experiencing violence and abuse, such as having their bones broken, after being detained without any formal charges.

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