ISRAEL: STEALING ORGANS OF KILLED PALESTINIANS?

GAZA— Gaza authorities have accused the Israeli military of stealing organs from Palestinian corpses, calling for an international investigation into what they described as a “horrific crime.”

Ismail Thawabta, head of Gaza’s government media office, said Israel recently returned 120 bodies via the International Committee of the Red Cross. Many of the bodies, he alleged, showed signs of “field executions, torture, and deliberate killing,” including strangulation marks and evidence of binding.

According to Thawabta, some corpses were missing eyes, corneas, and other organs — claims he said prove Israel “stole human organs while holding the bodies.” He urged the international community to form an independent committee to investigate and hold Israel accountable.

The Israeli military has not commented on the allegations.

Palestinian groups say Israel continues to hold hundreds of bodies of Palestinians killed in past conflicts. The Palestinian National Campaign for the Retrieval of Martyrs’ Bodies reports that 735 corpses, including 67 belonging to children, remain in Israeli custody. The Israeli daily Haaretz has reported that about 1,500 Palestinian bodies are being held at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel.

The accusations come amid a fragile ceasefire under which Hamas released 20 Israeli hostages and returned the remains of 10 others in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed an estimated 68,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, leaving much of the enclave in ruins.