In a 2014 television investigation that sparked global controversy, the director of the Israeli Skin Bank revealed that the occupation state’s reserve of “human skin” had reached 170 square meters at that time—a staggering figure considering the number of Israeli donors and the bank’s year of establishment.
A skin bank generally refers to a system of storing skin samples from donors, which are then used for grafting or skin transplant procedures, whether for deformities or burns of various degrees.
The investigation, aired by Israel’s Channel 10, included admissions from high-ranking officials about the harvesting of organs from the bodies of Palestinian martyrs and African workers, which were used to treat Israelis. It was also emphasized that the Israeli Skin Bank is directly affiliated with the occupation army.
The Israeli Skin Bank
The idea for establishing the Israeli Skin Bank emerged after the October 1973 War when the occupation state decided it needed a means to treat its soldiers who suffered burns during battles on all Arab fronts.
The bank’s creation was delayed until 1985 due to internal Israeli disagreements over the project’s religious legitimacy. However, the Chief Rabbinate Council eventually declared it permissible.
During the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas, the Israeli Skin Bank played a significant role in saving a large number of settlers and soldiers who were burned in martyrdom operations carried out by Palestinian resistance in Israeli territory.
Speaking to Al-Araby TV, Israeli affairs expert Anas Abu Arqub stated that the Israeli Skin Bank is the largest in the world, surpassing even the American Skin Bank, which was established 40 years earlier, despite Israel’s population being far smaller than that of the United States.
Abu Arqub asserted that the harvesting of organs from Palestinian bodies is not mere speculation, adding that “even the Israeli media acknowledges that the extraction occurs without the knowledge of the martyrs’ families.”
The occupation state’s reserve of human skin—equivalent to 170 square meters—preserved in the Israeli Skin Bank, supports Abu Arqub’s account. This figure is illogical considering Israel ranks third in the world for the refusal of its citizens to donate organs, a reluctance rooted in Jewish religious beliefs.
Another Chapter in the Occupation’s Crimes
In her book On Their Dead Bodies, Israeli Professor Meira Weiss exposed the theft of organs from the bodies of Palestinian martyrs for transplantation into Israeli patients and for use in research at Hebrew medical colleges.
Weiss also highlighted the discriminatory practices in handling Israeli and Palestinian bodies at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, where organ harvesting from Israeli bodies is forbidden, but allowed for Palestinians, with the organs being stored for use by Israeli patients.
In an interview with Channel 10, Weiss stated: “I interviewed the former director of the Forensic Medicine Institute, who preceded Yehuda Hiss, and he told me that they pressured him heavily to agree to make the institute a source for the skin bank that was to be established. However, he refused, which he said was a sufficient reason for his dismissal.”
Weiss, an anthropology professor, added: “During my time at the institute, I saw how they would take organs from Palestinian bodies but not from soldiers. They would take corneas, skin, and heart valves.”
Weiss confirmed that the Israeli Forensic Medicine Institute—where she once worked—supplies the Israeli Skin Bank with human organs. She noted that at specific times, organs were taken from Palestinians, then from new immigrants and foreign workers.
In this context, Weiss mentioned that non-experts would not notice the absence of these organs, as corneas were replaced with plastic substitutes, and skin was typically taken from the back, under the assumption that the family would not notice.
Weiss pointed out that the First Intifada in 1987 saw the largest instances of organ theft, coinciding with an increase in the number of Palestinian bodies. She noted that the institute’s staff received military orders to carry out these thefts without the knowledge of the martyrs’ families.
For his part, former Israeli forensic medicine lab head Yehuda Hiss admitted that Israel extracted organs from Palestinian bodies in the 1990s without obtaining the consent of their families. Israel has acknowledged this practice but claims it ended years ago.
According to a 2009 report published on CNN’s website, Yehuda Hiss appeared in a 2000 interview on Israel’s Channel 2, where he stated that everything done in the 1990s was “largely unofficial.”
Holding Palestinian Martyrs’ Bodies
Dr. Meira Weiss’s book on the theft of Palestinian organs corroborated the testimonies of martyrs’ families and validated their suspicions when they complained about organs being stolen from their loved ones’ bodies after receiving them from the Israeli side.
These suspicions began to arise among Palestinians during the First Intifada, leading them to deliberately snatch martyrs’ bodies from hospitals and bury them before the arrival of Israeli soldiers, fearing the bodies would be taken to Israeli hospitals for organ harvesting.
According to Hussein Shuja’iya, coordinator of the National Campaign to Recover Martyrs’ Bodies, Israel is holding about 398 Palestinian bodies—256 of which are in cemeteries of numbers and 142 in its refrigerators—while noting that several individuals are missing.
The “cemeteries of numbers” is a symbolic term for a large number of secret cemeteries established by the Israeli occupation state to bury the bodies of Palestinian and Arab martyrs. These cemeteries are identified by numbers, with some bodies buried without a card bearing the name and date of martyrdom.
In this context, Anas Abu Arqub emphasized that Israel has, for decades, retained the bodies of Arab and Palestinian martyrs and refused to return them to their families without justification.
When Israel did return the bodies, the occupation army forced the martyrs’ families to bury them at night, under heavy military presence, without allowing them to uncover the body, leaving them unaware of what they were burying. This has fueled the belief that Israel was seizing organs, including skin and other tissues.
In reality, neither the Palestinian authorities—whether in Gaza or the West Bank—have performed autopsies on any martyr’s body handed over by Israel after being held, to definitively prove that the occupation state was involved in organ theft.
In this context, Shuja’iya explained that an autopsy would require two to three days, while Israel mandates immediate burial upon handover. He also pointed out that families’ reluctance to agree to autopsies stems from a fear that the body might be stolen from the hospital.
Shuja’iya also noted that Israel holds the bodies for weeks before returning them to their families, keeping them in refrigerators at temperatures between -60 and -80 degrees Celsius, making it difficult to perform an autopsy to determine if organs were stolen.
Under international law, no state has the right to hold bodies of the deceased; Article 15 of the Fourth Geneva Convention criminalizes the retention of bodies and the removal of organs without the consent of the deceased’s family, whether in battles or within prisons, and emphasizes the prohibition of using their organs, even for humanitarian purposes.
Moreover, the Hague Conventions addressed the impermissibility of retaining bodies and mandated revealing the locations where they are held. However, in 2020, the Israeli Security Cabinet (kabinett) issued a decision to retain the body of any Palestinian, regardless of political affiliation, as a bargaining chip in any potential exchange with factions in Gaza.
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