Palestinians in Gaza worried about Israel stealing organs from bodies

By Nour Abu Aisha

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – A Palestinian woman, Rasmia Kodeih, has been demanding the release of her deceased son’s body from Israeli authorities for almost three months.

Kodeih, whose son was killed on Oct. 7, believes that his body is detained by Israeli authorities.

Kodeih told Anadolu that she feared that Israel would “steal his organs.”

“Stop Israel's theft of martyrs' organs. I want my son's complete body back, with all of his organs,” sobbed the Palestinian mother.

Kodeih condemned “the Israeli audacity to steal organs from the bodies of Palestinians in full view of the world.”

“This is a major crime that requires Israel to be subjected to trial and punishment,” Kodeih said.

“I am a mother. I just want them to give me my son’s body as it was,” she stressed.

Since the beginning of the ground Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27, Palestinian families have reported that they do not know the fate of their family members who were arrested by the Israeli army and taken to unknown destinations.

- Mass executions

The war of genocide, the mass executions of displaced people sheltering in schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods, give Israel the opportunity to mutilate martyrs and steal their organs, said Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement to Anadolu, Qudra called on international institutions to "carry out their duty to protect the Palestinians as well as the bodies of martyrs from Israeli mutilation and organ theft."

The official also called on the international community to "restrain the Israeli occupation and stop its behaviors that are contrary to international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention."

Qudra pointed out that specialized teams "received, on Tuesday, through the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing, the bodies of about 80 Palestinians who were killed by the Israeli army and detained for the period of its ongoing ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip."

Local authorities in Gaza late Tuesday accused Israel of stealing organs from the bodies of Palestinians and urged for an international probe into it.

In a statement, the Gaza-based government media office said the examination of bodies revealed that their shapes changed significantly due to the theft of vital organs from the corpses.

It added that the Israeli army handed bodies without their names and refused to specify from where they were seized.

It also said that the Israeli army repeated such acts during the ongoing war on Gaza and also exhumed bodies from graveyards.

The Israeli authorities are yet to comment on the accusations.

Since Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, Israel has continued relentless attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 21,507 Palestinians and injuring 55,915, according to local health authorities.

Israeli authorities claimed that the Hamas attacks have killed around 1,200 Israelis.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicines.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi in Ankara