Uncertainty surrounds identities of more than 100 Palestinian bodies handed over by Israel

By Ivana Kottasová, Abeer Salman, Mohammed al Sawalhi, CNN

(CNN) — Palestinian forensic experts are working to identify 120 bodies returned to Gaza by Israel marked only with numbers, some of whom were blindfolded, bound at the hands and feet, or bearing gunshot wounds.

Under the ceasefire agreement reached with Hamas last week, Israel agreed to transfer the bodies of what it called 360 “Gazan terrorists” into the enclave. Israel hasn’t provided any information about their identities or how they died.

It’s unclear whether the 120 individuals whose remains were returned this week died in Israel’s custody, in Gaza during the war, or were killed in Israel as they took part in the October 7, 2023, terror attack.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, health ministry, foreign ministry, justice ministry and the Israel Prison Service for comment, but has not heard back.

Only a handful of the 120 bodies have been identified so far. Two were named publicly by family members on social media as having participated in the assault on Israel on October 7, when thousands of Palestinians breached the perimeter fence.

Many were militants who went on to kill 1,200 people and kidnap 251 others, mostly civilians, in communities across southern Israel. Others were ordinary Gazans who crossed into Israel but didn’t participate in the attacks.

The unidentified remains were handed over by Israel to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which then delivered them to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Gaza, where forensic experts began examining them.

An official from the Ministry of Health in Gaza told CNN each of the bodies had a document that indicated they were, at some point, held at Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert, and that DNA tests had been performed on them there.

The base has been used by Israel as a detention center, where a number of cases of abuse of Palestinian detainees had been reported during the war in Gaza.

After the October 7 attacks, Israeli first responders were overwhelmed by the number of bodies found across multiple attack sites.

At that time, members of the ZAKA, an Israeli volunteer search and rescue organization that was called in to recover the bodies near the Israel-Gaza perimeter, told CNN that the victims were taken to the Shura Army Base, while remains of the attackers were stored at a different base in the Negev desert.

Doctors at the forensic department at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital described to CNN the state they found the bodies that were handed over this week, saying they showed “signs of abuse and torture.”

“Each martyr is given a number, and all martyrs are bound at the hands and feet. Some are blindfolded, and there are signs of gunshot wounds,” the doctors said.

The health ministry official said the bodies had broken bones and looked like they had been “crushed by heavy vehicles.”

CNN has seen photographs, including closeup shots, of some of the bodies. Zip ties, blindfolds, and gunshot wounds are clearly visible on some of them. Most of the bodies appear to belong to young men, and those who are clothed appear to be wearing civilian clothes. Some of the bodies had dirt on them. One with what appeared to be an IV cannula still in the arm.

The health ministry official told CNN that some of the remains appeared to have been exhumed after burial.

Dr. Lawrence Owens, an independent forensic pathologist who looked at photographs of one of the bodies said the person in the picture was almost certainly bound and blindfolded before death, and noted that a fingertip appeared to be missing.

Owens, a research fellow at the University of Winchester, said while the body had lines imprinted on it that appeared to be track marks, it was not nearly as damaged as one would expect if a heavy vehicle had rolled over it. He said, however, that it was possible the body was buried when run over.

Another expert who examined the same photographs also said the deceased individual was bound and that the blindfold was likely applied before death, while the track marks appeared to have been caused after death.

The Ministry of Health has set up a website where it has posted images of the remains in the hopes that family members or friends might be able to identify them. Many of the photographs are extremely graphic, showing wounds and details of partially decomposed bodies.

Some of the remains have already been identified through the website, the ministry said.

Mother ‘searched through more than 30 bodies’

Rasmiya Mohammed Khairi Qdeih from the town of Khuza’a in southern Gaza is among those searching for information about her family.

Speaking to CNN at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis on Wednesday, she said six of her sons were killed during the war, one has been taken prisoner by Israel, and one has been missing since the day Hamas and its allies in Gaza launched their assault in Israel.

Qdeih said she didn’t know whether the son missing from October 7 was dead or alive. She said he did not participate in the attack but went to Israel when the fence was breached to see what was happening.

“I heard news that they had brought the bodies of prisoners, so I ran (to the hospital) to see if he was among them or not,” she told CNN. “Whenever they bring the bodies of prisoners, I come here and search among them. Yesterday, I searched through more than 30 bodies.”

The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons (PCMFD) said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel’s omission of an official list of names of the deceased “arouses suspicion and strengthens doubts about practices of enforced disappearance and tampering with victims’ files.”

“We stress the necessity of providing complete information about the bodies being handed over and publishing all available information as soon as it arrives, including the names of the victims and details about the circumstances of their deaths, and immediately notifying the families in respect for their right to know and human dignity,” the statement said.

It is unclear how many more bodies of Palestinians Israel is holding. An Israeli official familiar with the matter told CNN last month that the bodies of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was believed to be one of the architects of the October 7 attack, and his brother Mohammed, would not be returned to Gaza.

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CNN’s Eyad Kourdi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Tal Shalev, Kara Fox and Ibrahim Dahman contributed to this report.