Gaza- Abu Omar lost his son in an Israeli bombing a year ago, leaving behind a young wife and two children of nursery age. Over time, the grandfather says, “The daughter-in-law married another man, and this is her natural right, but we agreed to go to court to request that the children be transferred to my custody.”
After he was busy preparing papers among hundreds of citizens in the Sharia courtroom in Deir al-Balah, in the middle of the Gaza Strip, the judge informed him that the marriage of the widow of his martyr son to a stranger who is forbidden to children would forfeit her right to custody, and that in consideration of the interests of the children, custody would be transferred to the grandfather, while guaranteeing the mother’s right to see them whenever she wanted.
On another side of the court, Siham, the widow of a martyr and the mother of 3 children, came complaining about her children’s grandfather who refused to grant her guardianship over her minor children, under the pretext that legal guardianship is transferred to him automatically, despite his old age and his inability to carry out their burdens physically and financially.
Siham (34 years old) continued to Al Jazeera Net, “I do not ask for anything for myself. I just want to be a guardian for my children so that I can spend on their education and livelihood without waiting for anyone’s approval. Daily suffering does not wait for long procedures.”
These two cases, which Al Jazeera Net reviewed, represent a small sample of the huge amount of legal cases caused by the war on the Gaza Strip over the course of two years, during which entire families were exterminated, and thousands of families lost their main breadwinner, leaving behind martyrs and missing persons, widowed wives, and minor children without legal guardians.
According to the latest statement issued by UNICEF – today, Sunday – more than 64,000 Palestinian children were killed or injured in the war on the Gaza Strip, while more than 58,000 children lost one of their parents.
Status of the courts
The judiciary and Sharia courts in the Gaza Strip face an enormous burden, represented by an unprecedented increase in the number of cases presented before the courts, and their level of complexity, as they generally revolve around the cases of the wife and her minor children, and proving property and inheritance.
Many grandfathers, uncles, and mothers found themselves facing grave responsibilities, not limited to caring for their children, but extending to managing their legal and financial affairs, which required obtaining legal documents of various kinds from the Sharia courts.
The war on the Gaza Strip also left many issues related to arguments for wills and widowhood, shares of donations and grants, arguments for exit, custody declarations, divorce cases, and others.
At the same time, the courts suffer from a severe shortage of personnel and headquarters, after the martyrdom of a number of judges and the destruction of most court buildings and judicial offices, forcing them to work in temporary places or within shared headquarters.
Despite these difficult circumstances, judges and employees continue their daily work, to ensure the continuity of justice in a society exhausted by war.
Legal burdens
For his part, Judge Ahmed Habib, who specializes in the affairs of minors, inherited funds, and guardianship at the Deir al-Balah Court, told Al Jazeera Net that the task of judicial work in the Sharia courts relates to two things:
- The first: adjudicating disputes and resolving disputes. This applies to lawsuits and cases, both substantive and executory. This is currently suspended due to the lack of a suitable environment suitable for the work of the courts, as a direct result of the aggression on Gaza, and the resulting absence of judicial control and the authority to implement the rulings and decisions issued by the judicial authority.
- Second: Instruments and documents related to proving and proving people’s rights for fear of damage and loss, preserving their legal positions in the future, and establishing and canceling those centers in accordance with the law.
These “documentations,” as he called them, include cases of marriage, divorce, and arguments of all kinds, such as restricting inheritance, guardianship, guardianship over minor orphan children, widowhood, custody, and divorce, and those related to the sale of inheritance shares, gift arguments related to donation funds and grants, singleness, permissions to disburse minors’ money, support, and explanations of proof of loss for missing persons. During the aggression, banning travel for minors as well as no objection to travel.
The judge explained that the number of transactions completed by the courts in the Gaza Strip during the war, in the period from October 7, 2023 until the end of June 30, 2025, amounted to about 82,126 transactions, distributed among death, marriage, divorce, and revocation of divorce, stressing that the divorce rate reached 12.6%.
The transactions also included the issuance of thousands of decisions prohibiting or allowing travel through the Rafah crossing for minors, incapacitated persons, or adult defendants, in addition to thousands of judicial decisions regarding registering death cases for those who were not registered in hospitals and health centers due to the inability to reach their bodies and register their data in the Ministry of Health, in order to oblige the Ministry of Interior to issue death certificates to them.
Habib added that some cases witness social tension in court, especially those related to custody and guardianship arguments, because they have special circumstances related to the funds of minors and their sponsorships.
He stressed that the Sharia Court imposes strict restrictions on the processes of disbursing, depositing, or collecting money for minor orphans, for fear of infringement on it, as it is the only body authorized to determine the most suitable for guardianship, in accordance with honesty, integrity, ability, potential, and legitimate interest.
Societal complications
The clerk of petitions at the Sharia Court in Deir al-Balah, Hossam al-Shaer, points out that the two years of the aggression on Gaza witnessed an unprecedented rise in the number of petitions submitted to the courts, due to the loss of the breadwinner or the annihilation of families.
Al-Shaer told Al-Jazeera Net that most of the petitions they receive daily are related to proving death, obtaining arguments for issuing a death certificate, and arguments for restricting the inheritance of the deceased employee or one who owned money and real estate, to be submitted to the competent authorities.
In addition to arguments for wills and custody of minor children, proof of marriage and divorce, and issues of divorce and gifts related to selling or granting inheritance shares in exchange for relinquishing them, which increase as families try to arrange their legal situations after the loss of their members.
He pointed out that the work pressure has greatly increased with the lack of employees and the damage to the court buildings, which made petition writers work long hours to meet the needs of citizens, stressing that “the judicial system in Gaza today stands in the line of defense of people’s legal rights and dignity despite the destruction and deficiency that surrounds it.”
The poet confirmed that what hurts him most in his work is writing petitions on behalf of mothers who lost their husbands or sons in the war, as each request carries a new story of loss and the suffering of a family trying to regain part of their scattered legal life.
For her part, lawyer Shamsa Mansour, who specializes in legal and regulatory issues, says that the war on Gaza tore apart the social fabric and disturbed the system of family and legal relations on which societal justice is based.
She told Al Jazeera Net, “This reality has created profound problems affecting trust within one family, as issues of inheritance, custody, and wills have begun to raise tensions within families that were cohesive before the war.”
She confirmed that most cases were halted during the war due to the lack of a public prosecution and a police force to implement decisions issued by the courts, with the exception of some cases such as divorce cases that were agreed upon in advance.
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