The 54-year-old father knew his six children needed food, but after months of war there was none. Little aid reached Jabaliya, where they had been staying since fleeing their home in the early weeks of the conflict, and his children had been reduced to eating wild plants. So Abu Jalala went out into the darkness to search for flour being brought by a humanitarian convoy.
"We would never have let him go if we'd known... We've not seen or heard of him since," said Etemad Abu Jalala, the missing man's uncle.
After six months of war, tens of thousands have disappeared in Gaza, their whereabouts unknown to their relatives or friends. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has recorded more than 7,000 calls to its missing persons hotline since the start of the conflict in Gaza but the total is almost certainly many times that figure.
Abu Jalala, who had chronic psychological illness, has not been seen since the night he left his family in the shelter.
"We go out to search for him every day hoping to find him, but in vain. We hope that he is still alive. We have tried to contact hospitals and the police... but without any results," his brother said.
More than 33,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza so far in the conflict, according to local health officials. Artillery bombardment and airstrikes have reduced entire blocks of flats or tenements to rubble across much of the territory, burying many whose deaths have gone unrecorded. Some of the dead have been placed in makeshift graves by strangers.
Raji Kamal Kaleel, 36, is still hoping for news of his wife and two-year-old daughter, whom he last saw in January during a bout of Israeli shelling and airstrikes in Gaza City.
Denne historien er fra April 12, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra April 12, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Votes of confidence
From India to Venezuela and Senegal to the US, more people voted this year than ever before, with over 80 elections across the world. With rising authoritarianism and citizen-led resistance revealing its vulnerabilities and resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges, has democracy reached its breaking or turning point?
Out of touch How president sealed his own fate in martial law gambit
For Yoon Suk Yeol, this month's short-lived martial law declaration wasn't just a catastrophic miscalculation - it was the culmination of a presidency that had been troubled from the start.
Son of the soil Who is François Bayrou, the farmer turned prime minister?
François Bayrou, the new French prime minister, calls himself a country man. A tractor-driving \"son of the soil\" and breeder of thoroughbreds, he has run for president three times, saying his rural roots and centrist politics led him to try to find common ground between left and right.
Power plant workers keeping the lights on
The Guardian Weekly visits a Soviet-era coal-fired thermal installation to learn how it has held up to Russian attacks
Prince charmed Alleged spy scandal may have exposed China threat
Prince Andrew should be commended for doing Britain a great service, according to longstanding China watcher Charles Parton. The now marginalised royal has, the analyst observed, \"almost single handedly\" succeeded \"in highlighting the threat to free and open countries\" posed by the contemporary Chinese state.
In Moscow, a new life of secluded irrelevance awaits Assad
He was whisked away without a last message to his people, the aircraft's transponder deliberately switched off to avoid detection as it departed from an airbase in Syria.
'We fear new oppression' Alawites worry over rebel rule
To prepare khubeiza, the leaves of the kale-like plant must be roughly chopped and sauteed with onions, garlic and a dash of salt. According to folklore, the recipe originated among the Alawite communities who lived in Syria's mountainous coastline where the fibrous, wild-growing plant can be found in abundance. So poor were the Alawites in Ottoman times, the story goes, that the only food they could find to eat was khubeiza, which sprouts like a stubborn weed every spring.
'Gisèle is waiting for explanations'
The Pelicot rape trial has horrified the world. But as it comes to an end, the questions it has raised about French society and rape culture have still not been answered.
FROM DOCTOR TO BRUTAL DICTATOR THE RISE AND FALL OF ASSAD
0N THE FACE OF IT AT LEAST, the Bashar al-Assad of 2002 presented a starkly different figure from the brutal autocrat he would become, presiding over a fragile state founded on torture, imprisonment and industrial murder.
What fresh alternatives can be used to placate coriander haters?
Everyone knows a hater of coriander - also known as cilantro - who won't go near the stuff. Itamar Srulovich, however, is not one: \"I adore fresh coriander, and always have,\" says the chef/co-owner of the Honey & Co group in London.
