The bodies of unidentified martyrs are another gaping wound in the hearts of Gazans news

The issue of the bodies of unidentified martyrs stands out among the thorny issues that the residents of the Gaza Strip suffer from, two years after a war of extermination launched by the Israeli occupation against the Strip before signing a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.

In this context, the Director General of Hospitals at the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Muhammad Zaqout, said that the Ministry received the bodies of martyrs bearing clear signs of torture, and others bearing traces of tank tracks and gunshots fired from a short distance.

Zaqout confirmed – during a humanitarian window from Gaza – that the Ministry of Health is facing difficulties in identifying the identities of the martyrs, revealing that the identities of 6 martyrs out of 120 handed over by the occupation through the Red Cross have been identified.

He pointed out that the occupation committed many crimes against civilians in Gaza, and did not even try to hide it, pointing out that most of the bodies of the martyrs cannot be identified.

According to Zaqout, the mortuaries can preserve the bodies of the martyrs for only a week, which will force the Ministry of Health to bury them within a short period of time.

He revealed that the ministry has created a link for the families of the martyrs and displays pictures and some of their belongings, indicating that the procedures are for the families to identify the bodies and belongings because the relevant genetic analyzes are not available in the Gaza Strip.

According to Zaqout, the occupation authorities did not provide the Ministry of Health with the genetic code that was conducted on the bodies, except for 3 names.

In turn, Samir Al-Manaama, a lawyer at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, says that the unidentified martyrs are a new episode in the series of genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Manama confirmed that human rights institutions receive complaints from the families of the victims regarding the missing and the bodies of the martyrs, pointing out that the occupation is still detaining hundreds of bodies in the numbers cemeteries since 1967.

According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the place, time, circumstances, causes, and any additional information that would enable the families of the victims to identify them must be determined.

Al-Manama stressed that Israel is required to radically address the issue of enforced disappearance and withholding of bodies, especially as it affects the families of the victims health-wise, socially, economically and psychologically.

Government agencies in Gaza estimate that there are about 9,500 missing people, some of whom are believed to be still under the rubble, and the fate of others remains unknown.

According to the “Palestinian National Campaign to Recover the Bodies of the Martyrs and Reveal the Fate of the Missing,” Israel is still detaining 735 bodies of Palestinians, including 67 children, in addition to 256 bodies in the “Cemeteries of Numbers.”

In addition to the massive material destruction, the Israeli war of genocide on the Gaza Strip over two years left about 67,967 martyrs and wounded 170,179, most of them children and women, and caused a famine that claimed the lives of 463, including 157 children.