Gaza doctors check ‘signs of torture’ on unidentified dead returned by Israel

From a single room, without a DNA testing facility or its own cold storage unit, the forensic team at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital tackles the challenges that peace brings.

Over the past eleven days, Israeli authorities have returned 195 bodies to Gaza in exchange for the bodies of 13 Israeli hostages, under the terms of Donald Trump’s cease-fire agreement.

Photographs released by Gaza medical officials show some bodies badly decomposed and in civilian clothes or naked except for underwear, some with multiple signs of trauma. Many have their wrists tied behind their backs and doctors say some bodies are blindfolded or cloth tied around their necks.

The forensic team at Nasser Hospital is working with almost no resources to answer the big questions about torture, abuse and identity.

Unit Head Dr. Ahmed Dhir said one of their biggest constraints was the lack of cold storage space. Bodies are completely frozen in Gaza and can take days to thaw, defying even basic identification methods such as dental history, let alone a thorough examination or necropsy (autopsy).

“The situation is very challenging,” he said. “If we wait for the carcass to thaw, rapid decomposition begins almost immediately, which puts us in an impossible position (because) we lose the ability to properly examine the remains. So sampling and recording the condition of the carcasses as they are is the most viable method.”

The BBC has seen dozens of photographs of the bodies, many shared by Gaza health officials, others taken by colleagues on the ground.

We spoke to many of those involved in examining the bodies in Gaza, as well as families of the missing, human rights groups, and Israeli military and prison officials.

We also spoke with three forensic experts from outside the region, including one who specializes in torture, to educate ourselves on the medical procedures involved in this type of investigation — all of whom agreed that there were questions that would have been difficult to answer without an autopsy.

Dr Alaa al-Astal, one of the forensic team at Nasser Hospital, said some of the bodies found there showed “marks of torture” such as wounds and marks on the wrists and ankles.

“There were very horrific cases, where the restraints were so tight that blood circulation to the hands was cut off, causing tissue damage and obvious signs of pressure around the wrists and ankles,” he said.

“Around the eyes, when the blindfold was removed, you could see deep grooves – imagine the force. The pressure left real marks where the blindfold was.”

Dr Astal also mentioned the loose clothing tied around the necks of some of the bodies as a reason for further investigation.

“In one case, there was a groove in the neck,” he said. “In order to determine whether the death was by hanging or strangulation, we needed to do an autopsy, but the body was not dissected because it was frozen.”

Sameh Yassin Hamad, a member of the Hamas-run government committee responsible for retrieving the bodies, said the bodies had bruises and signs of bleeding indicating they had been severely beaten before death. He also said that some of them had knife wounds on their chest or face.

Some of the images we’ve seen of the unit clearly show deep indentations or tight cable-ties on the wrists and hands and ankles. A photograph shows bruises and scratches that will confirm that the ties were used while the person was alive.

Other bodies showed only deep indentation marks, meaning a postmortem is required to determine whether ties were used before or after death. Cable-ties are sometimes used to transport corpses in Israel.

When we asked Israel’s military about the evidence we collected, they said it operates strictly according to international law.

We showed the photographs provided to us to outside forensic experts. These images show some of the bodies transferred to Gaza by the Red Cross.

All three experts said some signs raised questions about what happened, but without an autopsy it was difficult to reach firm conclusions about abuse or torture.

“What is happening in Gaza is an international forensic emergency,” said Michael Polnen, a forensic pathologist and professor at the University of Toronto. “Based on such images, a full medical autopsy must be done. The truth behind how the death occurred must be known, and the only way to know the truth is to do an autopsy.”

But despite limited forensic data, doctors at Nasser Hospital say the routine cuffing of the wrists behind the body instead of the front, along with the marks found on the limbs, indicate torture.

“When a person is naked, their hands are tied behind their back and there are restraint marks on their wrists and ankles, it indicates that they died in that position,” Dr Dhir told us. “This is a violation of international law.”

And there is strong evidence suggesting widespread abuse of prisoners – including civilians – in Israeli custody, particularly at the Sde Teiman military facility, in the months after the war began in October 2023.

“During the first eight months of the war, prisoners in Gaza were cuffed behind their backs and blindfolded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months,” said Naji Abbas, head of the Prisoner and Detainee Program at Physicians for Human Rights (PHRI), an Israeli human rights organization.

“We know that coughs have caused serious infections on people’s skin, hands and feet.”

We spoke to several people who worked at Sde Teiman over the past two years, who confirmed that detainees were cuffed hand and foot – even while undergoing medical treatment, including surgery.

A doctor who worked there said he had led a campaign to release Kapha and that the treatment of detainees there was “dehumanizing”.

But many detained during the Gaza war are held as illegal combatants without charge.

A complication for doctors at Nasser Hospital is now determining which of the returned bodies are Hamas fighters killed in battle, which are civilians, and which are detainees who died in Israeli custody.

Some of the bodies brought back by Israel still wear Hamas headbands or military boots, but doctors say most are either naked or in civilian clothes, making it difficult to identify their roles, interpret their injuries and assess human rights violations.

Photographs seen by the BBC show mostly naked or decomposed bodies. Officials say the trainers, who were in civilian clothes, had two small bullet wounds in their backs.

Sameh Yassin Hamad of Gaza’s Forensic Committee said that of the 195 bodies returned, Israel had sent back identification cards for only six bodies – and five of them turned out to have incorrect names.

“As these bodies are seized by the Israeli authorities, they will have complete information about them,” Dr Dhir said. “But they haven’t shared that information with us through the Red Cross. We were sent DNA profiles for half of the total number of dead, but no details about the dates or circumstances of death, or the time or place of detention.”

We asked the Israeli military about the details of the report, including the striking allegations by a Gaza forensic team that Israel removed a finger and a toe from the body for DNA testing.

Israel’s military said “all bodies returned so far are fighters from the Gaza Strip.” They refused to tie up any bodies before their release.

A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, Shosh Bedrossian, described the reports from Gaza on Wednesday as “further attempts to demonize Israel” and suggested the media focus on the Israeli hostage experience.

As the families of the missing gather at the hospital gate, Dr. Dheer and his crew are under intense pressure to identify the dead and answer what happened to them.

So far, only 50 bodies have been positively identified – mostly through basic details such as height, age and obvious previous injuries. A further 54 are buried, unidentified and unclaimed, due to severe pressure on space in the unit.

Several families of the missing were present this week for the burial of the unidentified dead, if one of them was theirs.

“Honestly, it’s hard to bury when you don’t know if the body is right or not,” said Rami al-Fara, still searching for his cousin.

“If there is a (DNA) test, we will know where he is – yes or no,” said Houwaida Hamad, searching for her nephew. “My sister will know if the one we’re burying is her son.”

Donald Trump’s cease-fire deal has brought some relief to Gaza, but little closure for the families of most of those who disappeared, leaving bodies to be buried in the place of a brother, husband or son.