Gaza- The employee examines the data accurately, passed his eyes to the papers bearing the name of the husband, the date of his loss, and the details of his death report, then closed the file addressing Umm Hamid, “We apologize, children cannot be registered within our guarantee program.”
At that time, Umm Hamid did not hear except words that fell on her as if she were falling from height, and she blew her feet outside the building, while she was carrying a death certificate that fought her, and she seemed as if she had received a slap that returned her to the zero point, where she thought that she had finally arrived, after months of running behind only one proof because her husband was martyred without a body or burial.
in Gaza Strip Thousands of families face great difficulty in obtaining death certificates for their families, as the official authorities in the sector refuse to issue a death certificate for anyone whose body has not been examined or his entry into the sector hospitals, without what is known as a “proof of death.”
This record is a legal procedure that requires the families of the missing to bring two witnesses that divide an oath, which is thickened by the sincerity of the data they provide as evidence of their vision of the body without being able to recover it or bury it earlier, or proof that confirms the sincerity of the novel, to give a license to issue an official death certificate.
Suffering and loss
Umm Hamid says to Al -Jazeera Net, that she extracted after the hardship of a death certificate for her husband, as she used a video broadcast by the Israeli occupation through his media, showing her husband’s body with the bodies of resistance fighters who were martyred in October 7 attackOctober, the court agreed and approved his official martyrdom.
But Umm Hamid, despite this legal recognition, collided with a new obstacle when she went to register her four children in a sponsorship program in an international institution, and she was rejected.
“The death certificate was extracted to get the financial guarantees of my children, but when I knew that he was a” October 7 “fighter, they deprived me of benefiting from it as if the loss alone is not enough,” she added.
Al -Jazeera Net contacted the wives of “October 7” fighters, who buy one pain, and it does not end at psychological pain, but rather extends to create a legal, social, and living tragedy, as women and their children are deprived of their most basic rights such as financial guarantees, relief assistance, and even the right to rebuild their lives.
The mother of Sajid, who was unable to prove the martyrdom of her husband to this day, sold all her golden junior to feed her four children after her husband lost, and tells, “People say my brother (keep) your white clice for your black day, and nothing black of these days.”
Temporary
Al -Jazeera’s correspondent bore these complaints to the legal judiciary in Gaza, who explained that he had submitted a temporary solution to the wives of the missing, represented in a document known as “explanations” granted to women who have lost their husbands more than a year ago, and explains that the husband has since been missing without being able to prove his death.
In a special interview with “Al -Jazeera Net”, the head of the Sharia Court in Gaza, Mohamed Farrukh, said that this document enables women to present the relief institutions to demand her financial rights, stressing at the same time that the wife is not considered an aggressor and she is not permissible to marry again until she verifies the fate of her husband, whether he is a prisoner or a martyr.
Regarding the kit, Farrukh explained that the missing wife should wait a full year after the end of the war and the return of the warriors, a deadline approved by the Civil Law in its No. 119, and the maximum legal period is considered to be the possibility of the return of the missing or the knowledge of its fate.
The file of the missing persons is not limited to the “October 7” fighters, but also includes thousands of civilians who are still under the rubble of destroyed houses, and it is difficult to recover the bodies of many of them, which causes their relatives to provide a death proof of death to prove their martyrdom.
Farrukh explains that in this case the court relies on evidence indicating the presence of the person at home at the time of targeting, as testimonies of survivors of the bombing, or messages and data that prove his existence at the time, and is treated as a martyr who is not stirred.
This also applies to those who were buried in random graves outside the hospitals, due to the difficulty of reaching them during the bombing, or the move of ambulances is not possible, and their relatives are required in these cases to bring two witnesses who participated in the burial of the martyr or the witness of the body and the location of the grave, and the statements of each of them separately, before the decision is issued.
Judicial sources confirmed to Al -Jazeera Net that the number of records of the death proof of the north and south of the Gaza Strip amounted to more than 16 thousand minutes, more than 11 thousand of them in the north, where the violent Israeli land operations were the most violent.
But approximately 10% of these records were rejected, due to the conflict of witnesses of witnesses or insufficient evidence, which puts families in a vicious circle of waiting and suffering.
Surprising stories
The war in Gaza resulted in very complex cases, which is difficult to imagine if it had not been actually occurring, as Judge “S.D.” tells “Al -Jazeera Net” the story of a woman who was residing in the southern Gaza Strip, when she reached a news stating that her husband was martyred under the ruins of their house during the siege of Jabalia last October.
The wife relied on two certificates confirming that the body was buried after it was decomposed into a skeleton, and accordingly conducted legal transactions, then she was later associated with another man, but after several months, the family was surprised that the husband was still alive, and that he was walking with the Israeli occupation.
This type of case is treated according to the Hanafi school, prevailing in the Sharia courts in Gaza, which states that the second marriage contract is proven if the entry is made, and the relationship with the first husband is spontaneously canceled in these cases.
In another incident, an Israeli bombing of the death of a father and his daughter almost at the same time led to the family, but the family faced a dilemma in the treatment of “inheritance inventory”, because he was unable to determine who died first, which is a decisive detail, because whoever dies second inherits from the first.
The Sharia judiciary explained that he managed to solve the problem by relying on a video clip and documented by a surveillance camera in the place, showing that the father died first, while the girl was taking her last breath minutes later, which enabled her legally to inherit from him.
In cases where the death of the two parties is proven at the same moment, one of them does not inherit the other, and the legacy is transferred directly to the rest of the heirs, according to the legal order, according to Judge S.D.
Attempt
In the face of thousands of bodies that were buried without a clear identity or their features were completely lost due to the disintegration or their scratching from stray dogs, criminal evidence experts face unprecedented challenges.
After communicating with a specialist in forensic evidence – preferred his identity – he explained to Al -Jazeera Net that the evidence crews are working in coordination with the civil defense, and they will start immediately after the reporting of an unknown body, to document everything that can be inferred.
The source says, “We photograph the body where it is found, with a focus on its position, clothes, and personal holdings, if any, and we compare it later with the cases that the people inform in cases.”
The source confirms that DNA tests, which can solve most of these cases, are not available in Gaza due to Siege And the lack of devices, forcing the difference to rely on primitive means, by examining 3 matters: clothes, holdings and the signs of the body, such as the presence of platinum, amputation, or spraining the limbs, or details of the jaw and teeth if they remain.
The judicial and health authorities agree that the legal status related to the file of missing persons and martyrs in Gaza needs “urgent treatment”, but the continuation of the war and the deterioration of the field situation prevents any comprehensive legal reform.
A source familiar with Al -Jazeera Net stated that “many files can not be legally resolved only after the stability of the situation, for example, the death of the missing person, for example, needs the end of the legal deadline, investigation and publication, and linking the facts with evidence, and all of this is not possible with the shadow of the continuous state of emergency.”
Meanwhile, thousands of families remain suspended between sadness and waiting, and women pay the price double; They are suspended until self -determination.