Gaza Tribal Affairs says handover of prisoners’ bodies reveals summary executions

The Higher Committee for Tribal Affairs in the Gaza Strip said the handover of the bodies of a number of Palestinian prisoners revealed “extrajudicial execution crimes and deliberate killings committed by the occupation against our heroic prisoners inside its prisons and captivity sites,” asserting that this crime represents “a blatant violation of all international and humanitarian laws and norms.”

The committee added, in a press statement, that it “expresses its deep shock and strong condemnation of this crime,” noting that the occupation treats the Palestinian person according to a logic of deliberate killing and extermination.

The committee held the International Committee of the Red Cross “fully morally and humanly responsible” after it received the bodies without a clear announcement of their identities or the circumstances of their deaths, leaving tens — if not hundreds — of Palestinian families in a state of anxiety and disorientation over not knowing the fate of their imprisoned and missing sons.
The committee called on the international community, the United Nations and justice and human-rights institutions to take urgent action “to open a transparent international investigation into these crimes, and to hold the leaders of the occupation accountable for the crimes of killing and mass execution against the prisoners and the Palestinian people.”

Preliminary examinations and reports from medical and human-rights teams showed that a number of the bodies returned by the occupation bear horrifying evidence of torture and field killings.

Signs of hands and feet being bound and eyes blindfolded were observed on some bodies, indicating that the victims were restrained and detained prior to being killed, and there were close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest, reinforcing suspicions of deliberate extrajudicial executions.

The Palestinian Government Media Office said that the Israeli occupation returned 120 bodies of Palestinian martyrs after detaining them during the genocidal war on Gaza, confirming that official examinations and field findings revealed the carrying out of field executions and systematic brutal torture against these victims.