GAZA CITY, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Authorities in Gaza accused the Israeli army on Friday of stealing organs from Palestinian corpses and called for an international committee to investigate a “horrific crime.”

“The (Israeli) occupation handed over 120 corpses through the International Committee of the Red Cross over the past three days,” Ismail Thawabta, director of the government media office, told Anadolu, adding that “most arrived in deplorable condition, showing evidence of field executions and systematic torture.”

Thawabta said some of the deceased were returned “blindfolded and bound by hands and feet, while others displayed signs of strangulation and rope marks around their necks, indicating deliberate killing.”

“Parts of many corpses were missing, including eyes, corneas, and other organs,” Thawabta noted, which he said confirms that the Israeli army “stole human organs while holding the bodies,” calling the act a “barbaric crime.”

The Palestinian official urged the international community and human rights organizations to “immediately form an international investigation committee to hold Israel accountable for serious violations against the bodies of the martyrs and the theft of their organs.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the allegations.

Israel currently has bodies of 735 Palestinian prisoners, including 67 children, the Palestinian National Campaign for the Retrieval of Martyrs’ Bodies said.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israel has nearly 1,500 bodies of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in the Sde Teiman military base in the Negev Desert, southern Israel.

Hamas released 20 living Israeli hostages and handed over the remains of 10 more captives in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners under a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel reached earlier this month.

The deal is based on a 20-point plan presented by US President Donald Trump, which also envisages the rebuilding of Gaza and the establishment of a new governing mechanism without Hamas.

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, and rendered it largely uninhabitable.