On Wednesday 25 September 2024, Israeli occupation forces sent a shipping container to Gaza that contained bodies of 88 Palestinians that were decomposed to the point that they were unidentifiable, sparking horror over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians even after death.

Israel delivered the Palestinians’ bodies in a large yellow container loaded on a truck and the ‘container’ holding the dead bodies was left in one of Khan Yunis’s streets, with no identification or information about how, when or where the people were killed.

Yamen Abu Suleiman, the director of the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said it was unclear whether the bodies had been dug up from cemeteries by the army during the ground offensive, or whether they were ‘detainees who had been tortured and killed.’

The bodies are going to be examined in an attempt to determine the causes of death and to identify them, before being buried in a mass grave at a cemetery near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Israeli forces reportedly have ‘stolen’ 2,000 bodies since the Israeli genocide began October 2023 from dozens of cemeteries, which they bulldozed during their ongoing military offensive.

The Palestinian Return Centre calls on the international community to condemn these brutal practices of the Israeli occupation forces, which are intended to terrorise the Palestinian civilian population. International governments should prevent Israel from returning the bodies until they have identified who the bodies belong to, and what were the circumstances that led to their killing.

This inhumane practice is a violation of international humanitarian law, which stipulates certain protections for the dead. This brutal practice raises concerns that Palestinians may have been tortured and have suffered other violations, such as sexual assault, which the Israeli forces may be attempting to cover up.

Therefore, the Palestinian Return Centre calls for a United Nations investigation into the matter to be of urgent need to establish the causes of the Palestinian deaths and hold the perpetrators accountable. If not strongly condemned or challenged, this practice may continue in the near future. This latest horrific attack against Palestinians in Gaza should spur international organisations and governments to take all available measures to pressure Israel, in particular by imposing an arms embargo and severing all diplomatic relations until it complies with international law and Palestinians are liberated from the system of military occupation, apartheid and settler colonialism.