Gaza Herald – The Gaza authorities have accused the Israeli military of systematic organ theft after bodies of Palestinian detainees returned under the recent ceasefire deal were allegedly found mutilated and missing vital organs, including eyes, corneas, livers, and kidneys. The shocking revelations have reignited long-standing allegations that Israel has, for decades, desecrated the bodies of Palestinians in violation of international law and basic human decency.
While the accusations may appear extreme to some, the pattern of Israeli necroviolence, the abuse and desecration of Palestinian corpses – is well documented. For more than 30 years, evidence has surfaced suggesting Israeli doctors and military institutions have harvested Palestinian organs for profit, research, and transplants. For many in Gaza, these new findings represent not an anomaly but a continuation of an old crime committed under the cover of occupation and impunity.
On 17 October, Gaza government media office director Dr. Ismail al-Thawabta accused the Israeli army of stealing organs from the bodies of Palestinian martyrs and demanded an international investigation “to hold Israel accountable for serious violations against the bodies of the martyrs and the theft of their organs.” He reported that of the 120 bodies returned via the International Committee of the Red Cross over three days, many showed signs of organ removal.
The bodies were returned as part of US President Donald Trump’s so-called Gaza peace plan following Israel’s two-year genocidal war that has killed at least 68,000 Palestinians. While Hamas released 20 living and 10 deceased Israeli hostages, Israel handed over around 2,000 Palestinian detainees, many of whom had been imprisoned without charge or trial. Al-Thawabta said many of the returned bodies bore marks of torture, field executions, and mutilation, describing “fractures, burns, and deep wounds” and evidence of corpses “crushed under the tracks of Israeli tanks.”
Before the ceasefire, Israel held at least 735 Palestinian bodies, including 67 children, according to the Palestinian National Campaign to Retrieve Martyrs’ Bodies. Many were kept in military morgues or buried in secret “Cemeteries of Numbers.” When some of these bodies were returned, families reported severe mutilations and missing organs.
International law explicitly prohibits such desecration. The Fourth Geneva Convention requires that parties to a conflict prevent the despoiling of the dead. The UN’s Minnesota Protocol also mandates care in recovering and handling human remains, and the Human Rights Committee warns that disrespectful treatment of the dead can constitute cruel treatment of their families.
Evidence of these crimes has mounted over the years. In November 2023, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented Israeli forces confiscating bodies from hospitals and mass graves, many later returned missing vital organs. By early 2024, reports from CNN and Euro-Med confirmed IDF attacks on cemeteries, bulldozing graves, and desecrating hundreds of Palestinian corpses, acts that amount to war crimes. The Gaza Ministry of Religious Affairs later accused the Israeli army of mass decapitations and dismemberments, including dumping bodies in pits covered with garbage near major hospitals.
The scandal recalls a history of Israeli organ harvesting exposed decades ago. In 2000, Israel’s chief pathologist, Professor Yehuda Hiss, admitted to removing skin, corneas, and heart valves from Palestinians, Israelis, and foreign workers without consent at the state-run Abu Kabir Forensic Institute. His testimony confirmed that the practice was “informal” and performed without family permission. In the 1990s and 2000s, multiple reports – including those by Aftonbladet and CounterPunch – linked the illegal global organ trade to Israeli institutions and individuals.
Whistleblowers such as Dr. Chen Kugel revealed that Palestinian bodies were targeted because “they were the enemy and no one would believe their families.” Even Israel’s Knesset held hearings in 2009 acknowledging past organ theft, yet no serious accountability followed.
This systemic violation extends beyond organ theft to the very legal structures Israel has built. The state is the only one in the world besides Russia to have explicit laws allowing authorities to withhold the corpses of Palestinians. A 2018 Knesset law permits police to retain bodies until families accept burial conditions imposed by Israel. In December 2024, another bill advanced to bar the return of Palestinians’ remains altogether, consigning them instead to numbered graves in remote military zones.
Human rights groups like Al-Haq describe this practice as “collective punishment” that dehumanizes Palestinians even after death. The denial of burial, mutilation of bodies, and conversion of graveyards into military zones form part of what Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembé called the “ultimate expression of necropower”, a colonial regime’s domination not only of the living but also of the dead.
For Gaza’s families, the pain is immeasurable. Mothers and fathers wait years for the return of their children’s remains, only to find their bodies disfigured or incomplete. Each corpse tells the same story – a people stripped not only of their homes and land but also of their right to rest in dignity.
As the world looks toward Gaza’s reconstruction and so-called “stabilization,” Palestinians insist that no justice is possible without confronting these violations. The desecration of their dead is not a side story of war, but its truest measure: proof that Israel’s occupation seeks to erase the Palestinian people in life and in memory alike.
