GAZA, (The Palestine Foundation Pakistan)The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared called on Israeli occupation authorities to immediately release all Palestinian bodies being held in their morgues and to disclose the fate of all Palestinians who have been forcibly disappeared since the start of the assault on the Gaza Strip.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the center also called on the international community to pressure Israel to allow Palestinian rescue teams to bring in the necessary technical equipment to recover bodies from beneath the rubble in Gaza and facilitate search and identification efforts.
The center stressed the need for the return of all Palestinian martyrs’ bodies as well as Israeli bodies, and for this humanitarian file to be closed without being subject to political conditions or negotiations.
The statement added, “We monitored the Israeli army’s handover of the bodies of 45 Palestinian martyrs via the International Committee of the Red Cross, who were then transferred to Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis. This came following the return of several bodies of Israeli detainees from Gaza.”
The center expressed appreciation for the humanitarian efforts of the Red Cross in handling this sensitive file and urged it to continue working on verifying the identities of the deceased through DNA testing, and to ensure the dignified return of remains to their families as quickly as possible.
It noted that some of the Palestinian bodies returned were intact, while others were only partial remains, raising grave concerns about the circumstances of their deaths and detention.
The center also criticized Israel for failing to provide any official list of names, calling it a suspicious move that further fuels concerns about enforced disappearances and manipulation of victim records.
It stressed the urgent need for full transparency, including the names of victims, causes of death, and the immediate notification of families, in order to uphold the right to truth and human dignity.
