Since October 7, Israeli Army abducted hundred of Palestinian bodies from the Gaza territories, and returned a certain number of them, in successive waves, without giving any guarantee of identification or respect due to the remains.

According to previous Hebrew Media reports, Israel has been excavating graves to perform DNA tests on bodies and bodies were also decomposing in Sde Teiman concentration camp, it’s not clear where the bodies originated from yet. No body taken by Israel has so far been identified as that of an Israeli hostage. Source

Thousands of Palestinians are missing. Their families don't know if they are alive or dead, if they are under the rubbles or abducted by Israel as human shields in Gaza or detained in the detention camps like Sde Teiman in Negev. Israel dug a lot of cemeteries in Gaza, since the beginning of the ground invasion. Many corpses are abducted, or desecrated in these places by bulldozers.

This way of proceeding with the bodies of the deceased is therefore perceived as a voluntary desecration and psychological torture preventing the families from mourning and knowing the fate of their loved ones. The ultimate stage of dehumanization. Indeed, the bodies are returned in an advanced state of decomposition, sometimes mixed, very little identified.

“The Palestinian Health Ministry said that the Israeli military has deliberately concealed the identity of those Palestinian people. There is no information about their names, genders and the location they have been kidnapped from. The circumstances of their abduction from the Gaza Strip are also unclear" September 25, 2024. Source

Chronology

November 22, 2023

• Israel has returned the bodies of 111 Palestinian civilians (Women, men and children) In Khan Younis, 111 bodies wrapped in bright blue bags, without any identities nor precise origin, arrived in a shipping container on the back of a truck. They were buried the same day in a mass grave in Khan Yunis.

• The remains, which bore only numbers, had come from the Indonesian and al-Shifa hospitals in northern Gaza, according to members of the committee at the burial site. According to Mohammed Salem/Reuters. The Al Jazeera Journalist Youmna Elsayed, precised they were detained by the Israeli occupation forces in Al-Shifa Medical Complex and Beit Hanoun Hospital a few days ago.

• The families weren't aware nor present. According to Youmna Elsayed the smell was awful, because they were kept out in the premises of al-Shifa, in a morgue without electricity, fuel or solar panel destroyed by the israeli occupation of the hospital.

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December 26, 2023

Israel returned the bodies of 80 Palestinians to Gaza after confirming they were not Israeli hostages. The bodies were handed over via the Kerem Shalom crossing and buried in Rafah. Gaza authorities are working to identify them and determine when and where they were killed. Israel stated that bodies were taken for forensic identification to rule out Israeli hostages. The ongoing conflict has led to around 21,000 Palestinian deaths, with thousands more feared buried under rubble.

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January 30, 2024

• Israel has returned the bodies of 100 Palestinian civilians who were killed during the ongoing ground Israeli invasion of Gaza. They were delivered in the morning, through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

• Quds News Network (@QudsNen ) : A significant number of these bodies were hard to identify, with many arriving as skeletal remains.

• WAFA correspondent said that 100 bodies were buried in a mass grave, in the city of Rafah, ome of which were decomposing, of unidentified slain civilians.

• The provenance of these bodies are unclear. Israely army had previously stolen the dead bodies from various areas of the Gaza Strip. Some were perhaps stolen by the occupation soldiers from hospitals and cemeteries during their raids on various areas of the Gaza Strip. For instance, Israeli soldiers have be seen stoling 110 bodies from Al-Shifa Hospital and from a cemetery in front of the emergency department in the same hospital in November.

• According to medical sources, inspection of some of the bodies showed that the occupation had stolen organs from some of them.

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April 24, 2024

On April 22, 2024, Palestinian rescue teams recovered 283 bodies from three mass graves at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces. Among the bodies, many were of women and children, killed during Israeli assaults on the complex. The majority had been buried collectively after being bulldozed by Israeli forces. Hundreds remain missing from the Khan Yunis massacre, with around 2,000 citizens unaccounted for in Gaza.

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Augustus 5, 2024

"Israel has returned the bodies of nearly 90 Palestinians killed in its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has said.

The Israeli army has returned the bodies of 84 Palestinians to Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem (Karem Shalom) crossing, according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency, Sanad, showed mass graves being dug in the Turkish Cemetery in the southern city of Khan Younis to bury them.

According to our team on the ground, the bodies were handed over with the participation of the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza. They were delivered to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis before the burial. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that it had no involvement in this incident.

It was not clear when or how they were killed. According to The Times of Israel newspaper, the Israeli army had seized the bodies for identification, checking whether Israeli captives were among them.

Yamen Abu Suleiman, the director of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said on Monday that it was unclear whether the bodies had been dug up from cemeteries by the army during the ground offensive, or whether they were “detainees who had been tortured and killed”. “The occupation provided us with no information about the names, or ages, or anything. This is a war crime, a crime against humanity,” Abu Suleiman said.He said the bodies would be examined in an attempt to determine the causes of death and to identify them, before being buried in a mass grave at a cemetery near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said Israel had sent 89 bodies as “bones and decomposed bodies in an inhumane manner”.

It said Israeli forces had “stolen” 2,000 bodies since October 7 from dozens of cemeteries, which they bulldozed during their ongoing military offensive. The office added that Israeli forces also previously dug up graves in Khan Younis, Jabalia and the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City, and transferred the bodies to “unknown places”, an action amounting to a war crime and a crime against humanity."

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Press statement issued by the government media office:

"The "Israeli" occupation army violates the dignity of the bodies of 89 martyrs, handing them skeletons and decomposing bodies.

In a new crime, the “Israeli” occupation army violated the dignity of the bodies of 89 martyrs of our Palestinian people, which the occupation had previously stolen during the crime of genocide, as it handed over their bodies as skeletons and decomposing bodies, in behavior that shames humanity. In today’s crime against these bodies, the occupation handed over these martyrs in only 35 shrouds, including 13 bodies that they placed in one shroud, and 22 bodies in another shroud, and the rest of the martyrs’ bodies were scattered in several shrouds in a way that was humiliating and degrading the dignity of the martyrs. Over the course of 304 days of the crime of genocide, the occupation had kidnapped more than 2,000 bodies of martyrs and dead from dozens of cemeteries in the governorates of the Gaza Strip, which the occupation bulldozed with bulldozers and military vehicles and turned over their graves, in a scene contrary to humanity and human feeling. The "Israeli" occupation repeated this crime more than once during the genocidal war. It had also previously exhumed graves in Khan Yunis, Jabalia, and Hay al-Tuffah and stole some of the bodies of the martyrs from them. In addition, it still has dozens of bodies in its possession, and it is necessary to remove the bodies and move them to unknown places and change. It is considered a war crime and a crime against humanity and is punishable by international legislation. We condemn in the strongest terms the occupation’s perpetration of this crime that humanity deplores, and we call on international and international organizations to condemn these heinous, brutal crimes. This new crime against humanity is added to a series of crimes committed by the “Israeli” occupation army after the United States of America gave it the green light to carry out killings against civilians, children and women. We hold the occupation and the American administration fully responsible for these crimes, and we demand the formation of an independent international investigation committee. Exactly in the occupation army kidnapping the bodies of the martyrs and stealing their vital organs." source

September 25, 2024

• In the morning, Israeli army loaded the bodies of 88 Palestinians it had killed and whose remains it had taken, onto a truck via the Red Cross and sent them to Gaza. According to protocol, documents detailing the place, date of death, and names should be provided with the remains, but Israel is refusing to hand over these documents and information.

• The Ministry of Health in Gaza refused to receive the bodies of the Palestinians handed over by Israel to the International Red Cross, due to Israel's failure to provide the necessary documentation and names with the remains. source

• Iyad Qadeeh, a media official at the Ministry of Health, said that Wednesday's arrival was the fifth time that authorities had received a truck load of unidentified corpses.

• He told Middle East Eye that from now on health officials would refuse to accept any more bodies without identifying information.

• A source at the Nasser Hospital told MEE that the truck driver, who had arrived from Karem Abu Salem checkpoint, was barred from entering the hospital and instructed to "go back to where he came from".

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• The transport company left the container containing 89 martyrs on the main street in front of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Imagine the news, imagine that 89 unidentified martyrs were not accepted by anyone, even the truck driver left them and went away. source

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor statement:

• Urgent intervention must be made to ensure the burial of dozens of unidentified Palestinian martyrs who were delivered by “Israel” to the Gaza Strip and to discover the circumstances of their death.
• We have followed with regret the information that the Israeli occupation army handed over the bodies of 88 Palestinians in a “container” without any data or information indicating the identity of their owners, the places of recovery, the time and circumstances of death.
• Following the arrival of the bodies in this state, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that it had suspended the procedures for receiving the bodies until all data and information concerning them are completed to identify their owners and names.
• The “container” with the bodies of the martyrs remained in one of the streets of Khan Yunis, which is disastrous and could cause a health disaster, and constitutes a serious violation of the rights of the deceased and their families.
• We call for urgent international intervention, including a full and independent investigation into the circumstances of the martyrdom of these Palestinians, the autopsy of their remains, their identification and their return to their families for a dignified burial.
• Conducting these investigations is an inevitable international obligation incumbent on all competent international bodies in accordance with international standards.
• “Israel” is obliged under international law, in particular international humanitarian law and international human rights law, not to mistreat the dead and their remains, and it must take all necessary measures to determine the identity of the deceased, including registration and record. transmit as much information as possible.
• We call on the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, the World Health Organization and the Red Cross to immediately take the initiative to bury the victims, to work with the Israeli occupation to provide information and identify them, and to stop degrading the human dignity of the dead and mistreating them.

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Palestinian Ministry of Health Press statement

With the arrival of a container containing approximately 88 bodies from the Israeli occupation, without any data or information indicating the identity of their owners, the places where they were recovered, or the time of death, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has suspended the procedures for receiving the container until all data and information about these bodies are completed to identify their owners and their names, considering that this is the minimum right of these people and their families. The Ministry of Health calls on human rights and international institutions, headed by the International Committee of the Red Cross, to establish clear procedures that enable the Ministry to receive the bodies, while bringing data and details of these bodies, including names, ages, and the areas from which these bodies were taken. We also emphasize the necessity of receiving the bodies according to humanitarian and international standards and in a manner that preserves the rights and dignity of the owners of these bodies. Ministry of Health 24 25 September Edited 4:27 AM

Journalist Hossam Shabat on X

"The bodies have been transported in a dump truck; they are decomposed and unidentifiable. Israeli occupation forces killed them in cold blood and treated their bodies like garbage. The bodies will be buried in mass unmarked graves. If this is not genocide, I don’t know what is." source

Suspicions of organs traffic

The kidnapping of the bodies of slain civilians from the Gaza Strip renews suspicions among the Palestinian medias and people that the Israeli occupation is stealing organs from the bodies of killed Palestinians.

WAFA article notes that, in 2009, Israeli media revealed that the occupying state owns the largest human skin bank in the world, and years later, the director of the Israeli Skin Bank told Israeli Channel 10 in March 2014 that the bank’s skin reserve amounts to about 170 square meters. These numbers are considered illogical in Israel as its population refuses to donate organs, for reasons and religious beliefs, ranking it third in the world and raising doubts about the source of these organs.

Yehuda Hess, who was director of the Israeli Forensic Medicine Institute, admitted in a 2009 documentary about the Palestinian issue to his participation in stealing organs from the bodies of slain Palestinians

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