Israel 'stealing organs' from bodies in Gaza, alleges human rights group

Israel's army has been accused of stealing organs from the dead in Gaza by an NGO, which called for an independent international investigation.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on Sunday it had "concerns" about possible organ theft from Palestinian corpses, following reports by medical professionals in Gaza who examined some bodies after they were released by Israel.

The NGO claimed it has documented Israeli forces confiscating dozens of dead bodies from the al-Shifa and Indonesian hospitals in northern Gaza, alongside others in the south.

Medical professionals reportedly found vital organs, such as livers, kidneys and hearts, alongside cochleas and corneas, were missing, which the Euro-Med Monitor called "evidence" of potential organ theft.

They also claimed Israel exhumed and confiscated corpses from a mass grave that was dug more than 10 days ago in a courtyard at al-Shifa.

The Israeli Defence Force has been approached for comment.

Israel has previously denied harvesting organs from dead Palestinians without the consent of families, calling such accusations "antisemitic".

Organ theft cannot be proven or disproven by forensic medical examination alone since multiple bodies underwent surgery prior to death, doctors at several Gaza hospitals were cited as saying by Euro-Med.

A full examination of the recovered corpses is not possible given the intense Israeli attacks on Gaza, they claimed. This follows comments by Palestinian health officials in Gaza that they can no longer even count the dead because the enclave's health system has collapsed.

Israel has long been accused of harvesting organs

Reports have circulated in recent years that Israel is unlawfully using Palestinian corpses.

In her book Over Their Dead Bodies, Israeli doctor Meira Weiss claimed organs were taken from dead Palestinians between 1996 and 2002 and used in medical research at Israeli universities and transplanted into Israeli patients’ bodies.

Jewish teachings permit organ transplantation and harvesting, with the need to save lives paramount over all other religious commandments.

A controversial Israeli television investigation in 2014 included confessions from high-ranking officials that skin was taken from the bodies of dead Palestinians and African workers to treat Israelis, such as soldiers with burn injuries.

In it, the director of the Israeli Skin Bank revealed the country's reserve of “human skin” reached 17 square meters - a huge number relative to Israel's population.

Israel is thought to be the biggest hub for the illegal global trade in human organs, according to a 2008 investigation by the American CNN network.

Israel has admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families – a practice it said ended in the 1990s – it emerged at the weekend.

The admission, by the former head of the country's forensic institute, followed a furious row prompted by a Swedish newspaper reporting that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to use their organs – a charge that Israel denied and called "antisemitic".

The story emerged in an interview with Dr Yehuda Hiss, former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic who released it because of the row between Israel and Sweden over a report in the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet.

Channel 2 TV reported that in the 1990s, specialists at Israel's Abu Kabir Forensic Institute harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of dead Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

The Israeli military confirmed to the programme that the practice took place, but added: "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."

Hiss said: "We started to harvest corneas ... whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family."