This is what Israel is doing to the bodies of dead Palestinian hostages

“I have not yet recovered from the shock of the horror I witnessed. How will the families of the missing feel when they identify their children?”

As part of the ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian resistance and Israel, the bodies handed over to the Palestinians by the Israelis have shown signs of horrific abuse and clear evidence of torture. Some of the bodies sent by the Israelis still had ropes around their necks, were blindfolded, and bore marks of severe beatings.

Israel has released 120 bodies in three batches — 45 on Tuesday, 45 on Wednesday, and 30 on Thursday — through the Red Cross so far. The genocidal Israelis, who have conditioned the flow of aid into Gaza on the release of the bodies of Israelis by the resistance, continue to keep hundreds of Palestinian bodies in refrigerators and cemeteries; some of the cadavers dating back decades. One of the oldest Palestinian bodies in Israeli custody dates back to 1980. Only a fraction of the bodies will be released by Israel during the ongoing exchanges.

In a statement on Thursday, the Gaza Government Media Office provided documentation of horrific abuse — including gunshot wounds, fractures, burns, among other injuries — meted out to the Palestinian martyrs in the Israeli rape-and-torture dungeons:

Official examinations and field evidence show that the occupation committed field executions and systematic torture against a large number of the recovered martyrs. The following have been documented:

• Clear signs of hanging and visible rope marks on the necks of several bodies

• Close-range gunshot wounds, confirming deliberate field executions

• Hands and feet bound with plastic restraints, indicating victims were tied before being killed

• Blindfolded eyes and facial features showing signs of arrest prior to execution

• Bodies crushed under Israeli tank tracks, a blatant violation of all international laws

• Severe physical torture, including fractures, burns, and deep wounds on many of the bodies

Warning: Graphic photos ahead

These photos of the Palestinian martyrs are a testament to the ceaseless Israeli barbarism that is not only genocidal towards the living, but also holds no sanctity for the dead.

One decomposing body was delivered while still blindfolded, with a tight rope around the neck, hands tied behind the back, and signs of severe abuse on the left side of the ribcage:

“I have not yet recovered from the shock of the horror I witnessed. How will the families of the missing feel when they identify their children?” recounted journalist Amr Tabash, who witnessed the mutilated bodies of Palestinian abductees. “The bodies I saw were mostly intact, but bearing signs of field execution, broken bones, severe beatings, severed fingers, hanging, dragging, and even the marks of tank tracks.”

“Some of the deceased were recently killed, while others arrived in a decomposed state or as partial remains,” Palestinian outlet Quds News Network reported.

Most of the bodies sent by the Israelis were unidentified, forcing the families of missing persons to sit through painful photos and videos of tortured and badly decomposed bodies to check if any features matched those of their loved ones:

This has become a painful ritual for Palestinians: forced to identify their loved ones from whatever remained of their bodies after devastating blasts from thousand-pound Israeli bombs reduced them to husk or left them to decompose under the crushing weight of destroyed buildings. Mothers and fathers often identify their children by whatever remains of the clothing they were wearing at the time of their martyrdom.

Hamas in a statement condemned these barbaric Israeli practices and implored international bodies to investigate the egregious crimes of the Jewish supremacist entity:

The horrific scenes visible on the bodies of the martyrs handed over by the occupation, and the signs of torture, mutilation, and field executions apparent on them, clearly reveal the criminal and fascist nature of the occupation army, and the moral and human degradation reached by this entity, which does not differentiate in its aggression between the living and the dead of our people; this constitutes a heinous crime that amounts to genocide against our Palestinian people.

We call on international human rights institutions, foremost among them the United Nations and the Human Rights Council, to document these heinous crimes, open an urgent and comprehensive investigation into them, and bring the occupation leaders to trial before the competent international courts, as they are responsible for committing crimes against humanity unprecedented in our contemporary history.

While Israelis are refusing to release the agreed-upon aid into Gaza — simply because the Palestinians are finding it difficult to locate the dead Israelis buried beneath millions of tonnes of rubble and desecrated graveyards, as a result of indiscriminate Israeli bombings that have destroyed nearly all of the besieged enclave — they are simultaneously delivering the bodies of Palestinians, bearing marks of horrific abuse for the world to see. It is not difficult to imagine the reaction if any of the Israeli bodies being returned by the Palestinians showed signs of abuse.

This open desecration of the bodies of dead Palestinians — while showing no intention to hide or obfuscate their crimes after two years of naked, barbaric, live-streamed genocide, during which they ritually sacrificed Palestinian babies by the tens of thousands, burning hundreds alive and beheading dozens of others — makes it clear that the Israelis are sending a message to the rest of the world. This phenomenon goes beyond genocide — beyond an orgy of violence committed for the purpose of ethnic cleansing and land theft. The genocidaires of the past attempted to hide their crimes, not exhibit them. The Israelis, on the other hand, broadcast their atrocities and demand that the world support them in perpetuating their ghastly quest. The message from the Israelis is unmistakable: they are barbarians who ritually slaughter innocents — for pleasure, to please their conception of the divine, and to assert their dominance over the rest of the world. Unless they are stopped militarily, there’s no reason why the Israelis will stop with the Palestinians.

---

Unfortunately, paid subscriptions have nearly dried up over the past few months. They are a lifeline. If you’re able to, please consider a paid subscription here or on Ko-fi or Patreon. You can also buy me a coffee or two at the link below. Thank you!

---