Concerns about 'organ theft' by Israel's forces from dead Palestinians were raised by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

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.

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

    • Eheran@lemmy.worldEnglish
      135·
      2 years ago

      “sus” is a very light word for an obviously made up story.

      Why people focus on this “40 babies” story is also beyond me. As if it matters if the person was 12 months, 3 years, 8 etc. to begin with.

      Not to mention that someone going through that horror, helping victims and seeing brutally murdered people for hours OBVIOUSLY is going to say nonsense. As if that person is somehow unaffected by that. People say nonsense in far less serious situations. I blame this on the media and the people sucking it up (on both sides!).

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        112·
        2 years ago

        40 is a special number. So as soon as I saw the claim of 40 I figured something was up with that.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_(number)

        “The number 40 is found in many traditions without any universal explanation for its use. In Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and other Middle Eastern traditions it is taken to represent a large, approximate number, similar to “umpteen”.”

      • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        It’s a classic propaganda technique.

        If there’s a statement that has some truth and some falsehood (such as an exaggerated number by a single person interviewed about a terrorist attack after retrieving the bodies from it), you repeat and point out the falsehood loudly over and over to distract and discredit the truthful parts.

        So we aren’t having discussions around whether any babies or infants were decapitated or burned alive or any number of horrendous things reported, because the number specifically beheaded didn’t total 40 and we’ve been conditioned to think that’s the important part of the statement.

        Like, in my mind, a single baby or infant or toddler being beheaded by terrorists is pretty reprehensible and worth discussing. But 99% of the conversations taking place about baby beheading is instead that no claims about the atrocities committed can be trusted because there weren’t 40 beheaded babies which was what a single person had said in an interview.

        It’s extremely effective.

        And honestly, it’s pretty gross that the rallying cry of ideological defense for Hamas is “there weren’t forty beheaded babies so any number less tortured children doesn’t count, no take backs.”

        It’d be like absolving Likud of indiscriminate bombing because the number of women and children reported killed by Hamas was higher than the body count as counted by a third party investigator.

      • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        It’s a classic propaganda technique.

        If there’s a statement that has some truth and some falsehood (such as an exaggerated number by a single person interviewed about a terrorist attack after retrieving the bodies from it), you repeat and point out the falsehood loudly over and over to distract and discredit the truthful parts.

        So we aren’t having discussions around whether any babies or infants were decapitated or burned alive or any number of horrendous things reported, because the number specifically beheaded didn’t total 40 and we’ve been conditioned to think that’s the important part of the statement.

        Like, in my mind, a single baby or infant or toddler being beheaded by terrorists or burned alive is pretty reprehensible and worth discussing. But 99% of the conversations taking place about baby beheading is instead that no claims about the atrocities committed can be trusted because there weren’t 40 beheaded babies which was what a single person had said by hearsay in an interview.

        It’s extremely effective.

        And honestly, it’s pretty gross that the rallying cry of ideological defense for Hamas is “there weren’t forty beheaded babies so any number less tortured children doesn’t count, no take backs.”

        It’d be like absolving Likud of indiscriminate bombing because the number of women and children reported killed by Hamas’s count was higher than the body count as counted by a third party investigator.

    • Therealgoodjanet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      52·
      2 years ago

      I’m not saying this is or isn’t happening, but they could use the organs for research or students rather than transplantation. In that case it might be interesting to see what a heart looks like after it’s been decomposing for ten days.

      • GenEcon@lemm.eeEnglish
        14·
        2 years ago

        Euro med has a history of spreading pro-Palestine fake news.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    96·
    2 years ago

    For all the people thinking that this can’t happen because of decomposition, israel has admitted to doing did this before until 1990.

    This doesn’t mean that this new accusation is directly proven since it’s an NGO accusation, but it’s certainly not some impossible fairy tale.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathologists-harvested-organs

    Channel 2 TV reported that in the 1990s, specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, 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.”

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    42·
    2 years ago

    Repost from a reply I put down below but now as a top level comment because someone asked:

    I just found the news article corroborated by multiple western sources but I did some additional digging now.

    I found a two week old article the site but not a more recent one. I’m not sure if this is the publication that the news sites based their articles on or if there is a more recent one.

    The conclusion seems to hang on allegations by the hospital director and ministry of health, but the corpses being stolen by the IDF seems pretty weird to begin with. Especially with their past reputation for organ theft.

    Euro-Med Monitor has documented the Israeli army’s confiscation of dozens of dead bodies from Al-Shifa Medical Complex and the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, and others from the vicinity of the so-called “safe corridor” (Salah al-Din Road) designated for displaced people heading to the central and southern parts of the Strip.

    According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army also dug up and confiscated the bodies from a mass grave that was established more than 10 days ago in one of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex’s courtyards.

    This recent Aljazeera video does seem to confirm at least 80 stolen bodies being returned

    It would be great if independent journalists were actually able to get into Gaza. The hospital director has invited an independent investigation but of course this gets blocked by israel.