Israel sends unidentified bodies to Gaza as Palestinian officials demand answers
Israel returned the bodies on Wednesday of 88 Palestinians killed in its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which the territory’s health ministry refused to bury before Israel discloses details about who they are and where it killed them.
CAIRO — Israel returned the bodies on Wednesday of 88 Palestinians killed in its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which the territory’s health ministry refused to bury before Israel discloses details about who they are and where it killed them.
The bodies were brought into Gaza in a container loaded on a truck through an Israeli-controlled crossing, but, according to Palestinian officials, there was no information provided about the names or ages of the victims or locations where they were killed.
Health officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis refused to receive them and bury them, urging the International Committee of the Red Cross ICRC to seek details from Israel.
“The health ministry halted the procedures to receive the container (carrying the bodies) until the completion of the full data and information about those bodies so their relatives can identify them,” the ministry said in a statement.
A Palestinian boy sits on a truck loaded with bodies of dead Palestinians after Israel returned them to Gaza, in Khan Younis, on Wednesday.Mohammed Salem / ReutersThe head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said health ministry officials told the driver of the truck to bring the bodies of dead Palestinians back to the Israeli crossing from which he had arrived. The truck then left the hospital.
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