Israel And Illegal Organ Trade Over The Years

The Gaza Media Office has accused Israeli authorities of allegedly stealing organs from the bodies of up to 80 murdered Palestinians, according to reports.

Amid Israel's ongoing war on Gaza, which has killed more than 21,000 people and injured over 55,000, the distress continues even in death. Upon the return of murdered Palestinians' bodies through the Karam Abu Salem border crossing on December 26, their organs were discovered to be missing, according to reports. 

"After examining the bodies, it is evident that the features of the deceased had significantly changed, strongly suggesting that the Israeli occupation had unlawfully removed vital organs," the Gaza Media Office stated.

Last month, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor flagged similar concerns about alleged organ theft by Israeli forces. Medical professionals conducting examinations on the bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel reported, “evidence of organ theft, including missing cochleas and corneas as well as other vital organs like livers, kidneys, and hearts”. 

Additionally, the organisation accused the Israeli army of exhuming bodies from graveyards.

This is not the first instance Israel has been accused of something of this ​nature. Over the years, the country has gained a reputation as an alleged hub for the illegal trade of human organs.

Israel’s Alleged Illegal Organ Trade Over The Years

In 2009, a controversy emerged when a Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, published an article alleging that Israeli soldiers had harvested organs from dead Palestinians. The article, written by Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom, claimed that Israeli soldiers had taken organs from Palestinians without their families' consent.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly urged the Swedish government to condemn the piece, labelling it "outrageous" and likening it to a "blood libel". Netanyahu vehemently rejected the allegations, and tensions escalated between Israel and Sweden. 

Bostrom based his claims on accusations he heard from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during the 1990s, previously published in a book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2001.

As reported by ABC News in 2009, the former head of Israel’s forensic institute, Dr Yehuda Hiss, admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families. 

“We started to harvest corneas ... whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family." The revelation came from an interview with Dr. Yehuda Hiss which was broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 in the previous days.

According to the program, pathologists at the Abu Kabir institute also took skin, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli civilians and Palestinians. The Israeli military confirmed the practice took place but said: "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."

In another incident, in her book 'Over Their Dead Bodies', Israeli doctor Meira Weiss alleged that organs were harvested from deceased Palestinians between 1996 and 2002. She asserted these organs were used for medical research at Israeli universities and were also transplanted into Israeli patients, as reported by Euronews.

In 2015, the chief Palestinian delegate at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, flagged concerns about the organs of dead Palestinians being harvested by Israeli forces, Reuters reported.

In a letter to Security Council president Matthew Rycroft, he wrote, “After returning the seized bodies of Palestinians killed by the occupying forces through October, and following medical examinations, it has been reported that the bodies were returned with missing corneas and other organs." In response, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations rejected Palestinian allegations and condemned the charges as anti-Semitic.

A 2008 CNN investigation found much of the world's illicit kidney trade could be linked to Israel, as per Nancy Scheper-Hughes, an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder of a newsletter called 'Organs Watch'.

Scheper-Hughes, who was in the final stages of writing a book on organ trafficking at the time, asserted that, in the realm of black markets for human organs, “Israel is the top.” She emphasised the global reach of the issue, stating that it had 'tentacles reaching out worldwide.'"