An investigative report broadcast by Al Jazeera has revealed the use by the Israeli occupation of thermal and thermobaric munitions, some of them manufactured in the United States, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius. According to documentation by civil defence teams in Gaza, these weapons caused the “vaporisation” of thousands of Palestinians, leaving behind only scattered biological traces.
The investigation, titled “There Is More to the Story” and aired on Monday evening, reported that Gaza’s civil defence teams have documented 2,842 Palestinians who have “disappeared” since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023. In these cases, no bodies were recovered, except for blood spray on walls or small fragments of flesh.
“We found nothing, not even a body to bury”
The investigation recounts the story of Yasmin Mahni, who emerged at dawn on 10 August 2024 amid smoke and rubble near Al Tabaeen School in Gaza City, searching for her son Saad after the school was targeted.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mahni described the search, saying: “I entered the mosque and found myself stepping on flesh and blood.” She added that she spent days searching hospitals and morgues without success.
“We found nothing of Saad,” she said. “Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”
“A documented figure, not an estimate”
Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence, said the figure of 2,842 is not a media estimate but the result of a meticulous field documentation process.
Bassal explained that rescue teams rely on what he called the “exclusion method” at bombing sites. “We enter the targeted home and compare the number of people who were inside with the number of bodies recovered,” he said.
“If a family tells us five people were inside the house and we only recover three complete bodies, we do not classify the others as vaporised until a comprehensive search is conducted, leaving only biological traces such as blood spray on walls or small fragments like pieces of scalp.”
Bodies turned to ash
The investigation attributed the phenomenon of “vaporisation” to the systematic use of thermal and thermobaric weapons, also known as vacuum or air fuel bombs. These munitions generate a massive fireball and a vacuum effect that destroys everything within their radius.
The report quoted Russian military expert Vasily Vatygarov as saying that these weapons do not merely kill but “obliterate matter”.
“To extend the combustion time,” Vatygarov explained, “powders of aluminium, magnesium and titanium are added to the chemical mixture, raising the explosion temperature to between 2,500 and 3,000 degrees Celsius.”
Explaining the biological impact of such heat, Dr Munir Al Barsh, Director General of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, said the human body is composed of approximately 80 per cent water, making exposure to temperatures above 3,000 degrees catastrophic.
“The boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius,” Al Barsh said. “When the body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees, combined with immense pressure and oxidation, bodily fluids boil instantly, tissues vaporise and turn to ash. This is a chemical inevitability.”
US manufactured bombs
The investigation identified specific types of US made munitions linked to incidents in which Palestinian bodies disappeared, including:
The MK 84, known as “the Hammer”, an unguided bomb weighing 900 kilograms, filled with Tritonal, producing temperatures reaching 3,500 degrees Celsius.
The BLU 109 bunker buster, which the report said was used in an attack on Al Mawasi, an area declared by the occupation as a “safe zone” for displaced people in September 2024. According to the investigation, the strike resulted in the vaporisation of 22 people.
The GBU 39 Small Diameter Bomb, used in the attack on Al Tabaeen School, containing the explosive AFX 757.
Vatygarov said the GBU 39 was designed to leave the building structure relatively intact while destroying everything inside it. “It kills through a pressure wave that tears the lungs and a thermal wave that burns soft tissue,” he said.
Bassal confirmed that civil defence teams recovered fragments of the bomb’s wing assemblies at strike sites that coincided with the disappearance of bodies.
“A global genocide, not only an Israeli one”
In a legal assessment of the investigation’s findings, lawyer and academic Diana Buttu, a lecturer at Georgetown University in Qatar, said what is happening cannot be separated from Western supply chains.
“This is a global genocide, not only an Israeli one,” she said.
“There is a continuous flow of these weapons from the United States and Europe. They know these weapons do not distinguish between a fighter and a child, yet they continue to send them.”
Buttu stressed that the use of weapons incapable of distinguishing between civilians and combatants constitutes a war crime under international law. “The world knows Israel possesses and uses these prohibited weapons. The question is why it is allowed to remain outside accountability mechanisms.”
“International justice failed the Gaza test”
For his part, international law professor Tarek Shandab said the international justice system has “failed the Gaza test”.
He noted that despite provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice in January 2024, ordering Israel to prevent acts of genocide, and despite an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2024, the killing has not stopped.
“Since the ceasefire agreement in October, more than 600 Palestinians have been killed,” Shandab said. He added that the war has continued not only through bombardment but also through siege and starvation. “Preventing the entry of medicine and food is, in itself, a crime against humanity.”
Shandab pointed to the role of the United States in granting the occupation protection through its veto power at the UN Security Council, but said an alternative path could emerge through courts operating under universal jurisdiction in countries such as Germany and France, “if political will exists”.
“Where did they go?”
At the conclusion of the investigation, Al Jazeera aired the testimony of Rafiq Badran, who lost four of his children in Al Bureij refugee camp during the war. He said he was only able to bury small parts of their bodies.
“Four of my children were vaporised,” Badran said, holding back tears. “I searched for them a million times. Nothing remained of them. Where did they go?”
