The Gaza Health Ministry refused to receive a container carrying the bodies of 88 Palestinians sent from Israel without prior coordination or information about their identities.
Procedures for receiving the container have been suspended until Israel provides complete data with the names of the victims, the time of death and the place from where they were taken, the ministry said in a statement published on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday.
These are the “minimum rights of these people and their families,” he said.
The Gaza government’s media office called the sending of unidentifiable bodies an “inhumane and criminal measure” in a separate statement.
According to Tareq Abu Azzoum, an Tel Aviv Tribune journalist in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, “the bodies are not identifiable because they are largely decomposed.”
“There are signs that these bodies have been in Israel for a long time,” he said.
“The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the Israeli army deliberately concealed the identities of these Palestinians. There is no information about their names, gender and the location where they were abducted. The circumstances of their abduction in the Gaza Strip are also unclear,” he added.
Recent Murders
The Palestinian Civil Defense said on Wednesday that at least 53 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip in Israeli attacks on their homes and shelters over the past 24 hours.
One person was killed overnight from Wednesday to Thursday after a house was targeted in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the enclave, and in the Nuseirat refugee camp, two Palestinians were killed when their tent was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
Those killed in Nuseirat, central Gaza, were members of the al-Ejla family, which lost 11 family members in August.
A body was found Wednesday morning in the Khirbet al-Adas area, north of Rafah. It is Khalil Salim al-Nahl, 70, the enclave’s civil defense said.
Earlier, our colleagues at Tel Aviv Tribune Arabic reported that a woman and her five children were killed in an Israeli shelling of a house in the town of Hay al-Nasr, northeast of Rafah.
At least three people were also killed in the Zinjo neighborhood of Gaza, where the Jundi family’s home was bombed, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud reports from Deir el-Balah that there has been a continued increase in attacks across Gaza, mainly in the central area and in the southern town of Khan Younis.
“The eastern area of Khan Younis, up to the coastal road, has been destroyed and there is nothing left there,” he said.
“In recent hours, attacks have taken place against the Nuseirat refugee camp, which has been the target of multiple airstrikes. Entire families have been killed and are arriving at hospitals in pieces or covered in blood,” he added.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that “nothing can justify” the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 or Israel’s “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” that followed, while calling for an end to hostilities.
“The international community must mobilize for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and the start of an irreversible process towards a two-state solution,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
At least 41,495 people have been killed and 96,006 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza. In Israel, the number of people killed in attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7 stands at least 1,139, while more than 200 people have been captured.
Arrests in the West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces raided Hebron on Wednesday and arrested six residents, security sources told the Palestinian news agency Wafa. The army also arrested a man from Idhna, west of Hebron.
Six other Palestinians were arrested in the towns of Kafel Haris, Iskaka and Burqin in Salfit governorate, Wafa reported.
Earlier, Israeli forces stormed the villages of Beit Furik and Salem east of Nablus city, as well as Asira ash-Shamaliya north of Nablus, and arrested five Palestinians, the agency said.
Israeli forces also arrested nine Palestinians from the Dheisheh refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, according to Wafa.