Bisan Fayyad was believed dead and buried by her family in January 2024 after receiving a body purported to be hers, along with her clothing and identification. At the time, it was reported that she had died under bombardment. The shocking truth later emerged: Bisan is alive, held in Israeli occupation prisons, and paralysed due to a spinal cord injury. Her case exposes a double violation by the occupation: the enforced disappearance of a living person, and the manipulation of corpses delivered to families without accurate identification, compounding the grief of her loved ones.

The Fayyad family’s ordeal is not an isolated incident. Reports from international media and human rights organisations, including CNN, The New York Times, and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, reveal a systematic policy of corpse manipulation and enforced disappearances during the Gaza war. At least 16 cemeteries were damaged or destroyed, and mass graves at hospitals such as Al-Shifa and Al-Nasser contained approximately 520 bodies collectively, many without clear identification. Families were denied the right to mourn properly, and delivering unidentified bodies only added to their suffering.

Human rights experts describe these practices as “violence against the dead,” depriving families of the dignity of proper burial and attempting to obscure the scale of the crimes. International law recognises enforced disappearance as a grave violation. According to the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006), arresting or detaining a person while refusing to acknowledge their fate or whereabouts constitutes a crime against humanity when practiced on a large scale. Bisan Fayyad’s story exemplifies this violation, reflecting the systematic repression Palestinians endure under occupation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Commission have emphasised the urgent need to determine the fate of missing persons in Gaza. Mass grave discoveries and the mishandling of corpses are regarded as evidence of potential war crimes, prompting calls for independent international investigations. Humanitarian groups warn that such acts of deception and enforced disappearance inflict deep psychological trauma on families, while undermining the protection of civilians in times of conflict.

Locally, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights condemned the occupation’s policy of withholding or misidentifying corpses as an “exacerbation of humiliation” for Palestinian families. The Commission for Prisoners and Released Prisoners described the Fayyad case as a “double crime,” combining enforced disappearance with the deliberate deception of delivering a body that does not belong to the detainee. Bisan’s story has become a symbol of the suffering endured by hundreds of Palestinian families, highlighting the urgent need for accountability and justice amid ongoing violations in Gaza.