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Campaigners says Israeli forces confiscated 198 bodies of Palestinians killed in 2024: Report
Israel’s military is holding the bodies of 198 Palestinians killed throughout 2024, a figure that represents just one-third of all of the bodies of slain Palestinians held by Israeli authorities in morgues and “numbered graves”, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.
The National Campaign for the Retrieval of Palestinian and Arab War Victims’ Bodies and the Disclosure of the Fate of Those Missing told Wafa that a total of 641 Palestinian bodies, documents by the group, are being held by Israel. That figure does not include the confiscation and withholding of bodies of Palestinians killed in Gaza, the campaign group said.
While Israeli forces have returned the remains of 325 slain Palestinians to Gaza, there is “no accurate information available” as to the total number of bodies in the possession of Israeli authorities, Wafa said, quoting the group.
Child rights organisation Defense for Children International said in December that the bodies of 39 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces have been withheld from their families since 2016. The figure had reached 45 children’s bodies confiscated by Israeli forces but six of those had been returned to their families.
“Israeli authorities’ practice of confiscating and withholding Palestinian bodies is a violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” the organisation said.
“For families, the practice amounts to collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law,” it added.
Know their names – Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza
As the conflict in Gaza enters its 15th month, more than 45,400 people have been killed and 108,000 injured.
The war has been particularly marked by the challenges of reporting from a war zone in effect sealed off to reporters from outside Gaza, where reporting has been impossible at times — and far too often, deadly.
Despite these challenges, Palestinian journalists have continued to report the horrors of the war, serving as the world’s eyes and ears during one of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century.
From October 7, 2023, to December 25, 2024, at least 217 journalists and media workers had been killed in Gaza. Five more were killed on December 26 when an Israeli air strike targeted a news van near al-Awda Hospital. These most recent killings of journalists underscore the perilous environment in which media professionals are operating in Gaza.
Simply put, this has been the worst conflict for journalists — ever.
Israel’s army has killed 1,091 babies in Gaza, media office says
Israeli forces have killed 1,091 Palestinian infants since October 7, 2023, including 238 born and killed during the ongoing war, Gaza’s Government Media Office says.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 17,400 children in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials. That is one child killed every 30 minutes. Thousands more are missing under the rubble, presumed dead.
Israeli settler violence reached record levels in 2024
OCHA is reporting that 2024 saw the highest number of Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since the agency began keeping records nearly two decades ago.
About 1,400 such incidents – including physical assaults, arson attacks, raids on Palestinian communities and the destruction of fruit trees – have resulted in Palestinian casualties, damage to property, or both, it said.
This amounts to nearly four incidents per day.
Of the 4,700 people who were internally displaced across the West Bank this past year, about 560, or 12 percent, cited settler violence and access restrictions as the main reasons that forced them out of their homes or communities, OCHA added.
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