Hamas calls for international probe into torture of Palestinians returned by Israel

The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, has called for an urgent international investigation into crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians whose bodies were handed over to Gaza under the ongoing ceasefire agreement.

In a statement on Thursday, Hamas said the bodies bore clear signs of torture, abuse, and field executions, accusing the Israeli army of “criminal and fascist conduct” and “moral and humanitarian collapse.”

“The horrific scenes on the bodies of the martyrs returned by the occupation — the signs of torture, abuse, and field executions — clearly reveal the criminal nature of the occupation army,” the statement read.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, the bodies of 120 Palestinians were delivered by Israel as part of the prisoner exchange deal that took effect last Friday.

Munir al-Barsh, the ministry’s director general, said many of the bodies showed signs of burns, beatings, handcuffing, and blindfolding, suggesting that some of the victims were tortured before being killed.

The ministry said the bodies were returned without identification, forcing medical teams to rely on basic and manual methods to determine their identities. To assist families searching for missing relatives, the ministry published an online portal containing carefully selected images that, it said, “respect the dignity of the deceased and do not violate their privacy.”

Hamas condemned the reported acts, saying that “the occupation does not distinguish between the living and the dead among our people,” and described the killings as “a heinous crime amounting to genocide.”

The movement urged international human rights organisations, the United Nations, and the UN Human Rights Council to “document these crimes, open an urgent and comprehensive investigation, and bring the occupation leaders to justice.”

Before the ceasefire came into effect, Israel was holding 735 Palestinian bodies in what are known as the “cemeteries of numbers”, according to the Palestinian National Campaign to Recover the Bodies of Martyrs and Uncover the Fate of the Missing, a non-governmental organisation.