Shamikh Badra is preparing to travel from his home in Australia to war-torn Gaza.
The reason? To find his brother, who went missing 12 months ago.
“My father passed away [because of] a lack of medicine,” the Palestinian-Australian told SBS News.
“Then when the neighbours tried to call my brother Ehab and his family in order to come to help them, to bury my father, but Ehab didn’t reply to them.”
Shamikh says his friend told him he had messaged his brother “many times”, but the texts went unanswered.
After reuniting with his youngest brother, Majed, in Australia, the two siblings have been trying to find out where their brother is — and they’re defying government advice to do it.
Israel reached last month following 15 months of conflict, and this week reopened a corridor into Gaza’s north, .
Despite the joy of returning home, what awaits them are houses that have now become inhabitable, with a shortage of basic supplies.
With northern Gaza reopened to its residents, Majed says he and his brother Shamikh plan to visit their mother, while also searching for their brother and his family.
“If he’s alive, we will be happy. I hope this will happen,” Majed told SBS News.
“If he’s not, we have to bury their bodies in a respectful way.”
Palestinian-Australian brothers Majed and Shamikh Badra intend on travelling to northern Gaza to reunite with their mother and find their brother, who went missing 12 months ago. Source: SBS News
In a statement to SBS News, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australians should not travel to Gaza or areas near its border, due to an extreme risk to health and safety.
The Smart Traveller website also warns the Australian government has limited ability to provide consular assistance in most cases in the region.
Nevertheless, some Palestinian-Australians are so desperate to head back to Gaza in search of their loved ones that they’re willing to ignore government advice.
Mahmoud Kaskeen’s cousin has been missing since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war.
“He went to bring food for his family. The situation was very difficult in northern Gaza, and he didn’t come home on time. Everyone was asking a day, two days, three days passed. They found his car, but they did not find him or any trace of him,” he told SBS News.
But even though Kaskeen wants to head to Gaza to look for his cousin, he said there was one big barrier many would face.
“The main concern of many relatives, both here and in Gaza, is searching for some of the family members who were missing and whom we do not even know where they are. Were they imprisoned? Were they among the dead?,” he said.
Mahmoud Kaskeen’s cousin has disappeared since the war began. But he’s unsure whether he’s dead or alive. Source: SBS News
Thousands of people missing in Gaza
Health authorities in Gaza say the number of missing people and unrecovered bodies stands at roughly 8,000.
UNICEF has been trying to help displaced Palestinian children find their families since the war began.
“Since the beginning of the war, 17,000 children have been separated or unaccompanied,” Jonathan Crickx, UNICEF Palestine’s chief of communications, told SBS News.
“We’re also trying to trace them, so what we do, especially during the war, before the ceasefire, we were trying to reunite the children with their parents, most often from the north to the south.”
Israel bombarded Gaza for 15 months following Hamas’ October 7 attack in which some 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government.
More than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, including more than 18,000 children, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
The October 7 attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
