Anadolu Agency - July 24, 2024

According to Haaretz, the Israeli army is currently holding the bodies of 1,500 Palestinians, believed to be from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), at the Sdei Teiman detention facility in southern Israel since October 7th. This is the first time the Israeli army has admitted to holding bodies at Sdei Teiman, though it claimed on October 10th that it had found the bodies of at least 1,500 Palestinian militants inside settlements bordering southern Gaza Strip.

"Categorized by Numbers" Haaretz reports, citing an unnamed Israeli ministry official, that in the early months of the war, unidentified bodies clearly Arab in origin were found. The official stated, "No relatives of these bodies have contacted the police about them, and they are transferred to the military base at Sdei Teiman, where the bodies of about 1,500 Hamas militants are held."

An Israeli soldier, unnamed, who served there and dealt directly with those bodies, mentioned that they are "preserved in refrigerators and indexed by numbers, not by names."

"Bodies in Poor Condition" The soldier described that "the bodies were in a poor state, some were decomposing, some had lost limbs, some faces were visible, while others were not," as reported by Haaretz.

The newspaper added that "it is assumed that the vast majority of the unidentified bodies at the base (Sdei Teiman) are members of Hamas's elite forces or residents of Gaza who crossed the border into the settlements adjacent to the Gaza Strip during the events of October 7th."

These bodies were never sent to Shura base, where massacre victims (from the October 7th attack) were identified, nor to the forensic institute for autopsy.

"DNA Sampling" Haaretz also mentioned that to rule out the possibility that they were Israeli, DNA samples were taken from all bodies and compared with samples provided by families of missing Israelis.

The Israeli army stated, "Since that day (October 7th), Palestinian bodies have been transferred to Sdei Teiman base, and any decision regarding the return of the bodies as of October 7th rests with the government."

In early June, the Israeli Supreme Court began considering a petition by five Israeli human rights organizations demanding the immediate closure of the Sdei Teiman military detention center, following reports of torture and killing of Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip inside it.

Since the beginning of its ground battles in the Gaza Strip on October 27th last year, the Israeli army has arrested thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, released a few later, but the fate of others remains unknown amidst testimonies of systematic torture against the detainees.

The Israeli Prison Authority estimates that there are more than 9,000 Palestinian detainees, with no official count on the number of detainees from Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency