Chilling Report: Danger of Complete Disappearance of Hostage Remains

Against the backdrop of attempts to restart hostage release negotiations, a special medical report published today raises concerns about the real danger of disappearance of deceased hostages in Gaza.

According to Yolan Cohen's report on Channel 12 News, there are fears it may become impossible to locate their bodies and bring them to proper burial. Additionally, the report warns of the risk of damage to the remains' integrity.

At the core of these warnings is the fundamental assumption that the location of many deceased hostages is likely known to only a small number of people, with concerns that these individuals may disappear during the fighting without leaving proper documentation. Another risk, beyond intelligence gaps, is damage to the remains due to environmental conditions. The field conditions in Gaza may compromise the integrity of the remains and complicate identification and understanding of death circumstances in future investigations.

Professor Hagai Levine, head of the health department at the Hostage Families Forum, stated: "There is a real danger to the deceased hostages, one that could affect the ability to return them for proper burial. Returning the deceased hostages for dignified burial and restoring lives for rehabilitation are fundamental conditions for healing personal, social, and national wounds. This is a moral and national obligation of the State of Israel toward its citizens, part of the unwritten contract on which Israeli society is based. Without the return of deceased hostages and in the absence of certainty, family members become living-dead, and the deceased remain dead-living. This wound undermines the trust on which the entire social fabric is built."