Published on 6/24/2026
“It never occurred to me that this war would rob me of my son.” The pain of these words sums up the Lebanese woman Sawsan Alam’s burning human tragedy for dozens of families, after the fate of their children detained by Israel since 2024 has become a fundamental and direct focus in the current talks to end the war.
Behind the silent numbers of at least 37 Lebanese detainees whose absence is documented by human rights organizations, human suffering is intertwined with the scenes of political negotiations, as the Lebanese government demands the release of these abductees as a basic condition for stopping the conflict, in light of an absolute Israeli blackout and complete deprivation of the detainees of their most basic legal and human rights.
Reporter Zeina Khader says, in a report she prepared for Al Jazeera English, that the story of the boy Jawad (18 years old) stands out as an eyewitness to the reality of enforced disappearance, as he went missing with his friend Hadi and two other people more than a week ago in southern Lebanon.
While the ceasefire was supposed to be in effect coinciding with the beginning of the return of people to their villages, the front lines were changing amid the continuing operations of the Israeli occupation army, so Jawad and his companions lost their way and took a wrong turn.
Mother Sawsan Alama bitterly recounts the details of her last call with him: “I called him and asked him: Where are you? He answered me: Mom, we are on our way back. I think we have arrived in an area we do not know. After only 5 minutes, I tried to call him again, but he was out of the coverage area.”
Immediately, Sawsan contacted the Lebanese authorities, the army, and the United Nations to no avail, so the fate of her only son remained suspended in the unknown. Sawsan hotly confirms: “Jawad has no connection to any organisation. He is just a young boy, and I just want to know the truth. Where is he now?”
Human rights data indicate that the vast majority of these detainees are civilians, some of whom were arrested during the incursions of the occupation army and others after the truce agreement in November 2024, and all of them were deprived of legal procedures and communication with their lawyers and families.
In light of the silence of the Israeli government, the representative of the released prisoners and detainees, Ahmed Talib, summed up the gloom of the scene by saying: “Until this moment, Israel refuses to provide any information about these detainees, as we do not even know anything about their health conditions.”
Despite this difficult humanitarian scene, Israel continues to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from reaching Lebanese detainees, awaiting the outcome of the negotiation corridors between Beirut and Tel Aviv to end the war.
On June 18, the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding stipulating the cessation of fighting on various fronts, including Lebanon, with an emphasis on respecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Since last March 2, Israel has launched an aggression against Lebanon, resulting in the killing of 4,175 people and the injury of 12,164 others, in addition to the displacement of more than a million people, according to Lebanese data.
Israel has been occupying areas in southern Lebanon, some of them for decades, and others since the war in 2023 and 2024, and during the current aggression it penetrated more than 10 kilometers into Lebanese territory, in its deepest advance since its withdrawal from the south in 2000.
