– Zaina Aman
11 January 2024
Israel’s onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, which began on 7 October, had killed over 23,357 Palestinians, mostly women and children and 59,410 others are injured, according to Palestinian health authorities. Besides, Israeli forces are digging up Palestinian graves and taking bodies, harvesting organs from the bodies of Palestinians, local authorities confirmed after receiving dozens of bodies in which livers, hearts, kidneys and corneas were missing. Thereafter, bodies were handed over to Gaza authorities without any identification of the dead and also Israeli forces refused to disclose from where the bodies came from, says Gaza Media offices.
This was not the first time that this incident happened, in November 2023 also Israeli forces removed Palestinian corpses from two hospital complexes i.e. from Al-Shifa Medical Complex and the Indonesian Hospital in the Northern Gaza Strip. Gaza’s Health Ministry says, then in December 2023, Israel handed back the bodies of 80 slain Palestinians through the Karam Abu Salem border crossing.
“Even the dead, they took them out of their graves. This is neither lawful, nor religious, nor Islam nor any other religion would accept this crime being done to the deceased. What did these dead do to them?” one of the Palestinians says.
On 29 November 2023, Euro-Med Monitor claimed Israel is one of the “world’s biggest hubs for the illegal trade of human organs under the pretext of ‘security deterrence’.” It urged the country to abide by “international law” and reiterated the “necessity of respecting and protecting the bodies of the dead during armed conflicts.”
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has called the evidence of potential organ theft and have ordered the creation of an independent international investigative committee.
While dozens of corpses were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which in turn transported them to the southern Gaza Strip to complete the burial process, the Israeli army is still holding the bodies of dozens of dead people.
This statement of missing organs and bodies exhumed from graveyards slammed the “silence” and inaction of international organisations operating in Gaza, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Also, since October 7, Israel has reportedly bulldozed 12 cemeteries in the Gaza Strip, desecrating 1,100 graves.
