[News] Israel Bombed Its Own People and Uses Their Bodies as Political Chips against Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

palestinechronicle.com 
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israel-bombed-its-own-people-and-uses-their-bodies-as-political-chips-against-gaza/> 



  Israel Bombed Its Own People and Uses Their Bodies as Political Chips
  against Gaza

October 19, 2025
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ICRC receives the bodies of four Israeli captives. (Photo: via ICRC 
website)

*By Robert Inlakesh 
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/robert-inlakesh>*


          After having relentlessly bombarded Gaza for over two years,
          the Israelis insidiously use the remains of their own dead in
          order to threaten restarting the genocide.

Western corporations continue to display their collective belief that 
Israeli life is more precious than Palestinian life, ignoring all the 
hostages Israel holds. Meanwhile, the bodies held in Gaza, although 
treated as superior victims of Hamas, are all of Israeli citizens who 
remained trapped under the rubble of their own military’s airstrikes and 
are now used as political chips.

At least 19 bodies continue to remain in Gaza, buried underneath mounds 
of rubble due to Israel’s two-year-long indiscriminate bombing of the 
besieged coastal territory. Recently, the Associated Press released an 
article naming all of them and eulogizing them.

Many were soldiers or active combatants, upholding an illegal occupation 
and siege, yet they are still portrayed as if they were innocent 
civilians. Under the laws of war, active combatants of an occupation 
force are considered valid targets and prisoners of war if they are 
seized during battle, yet those Israelis who fit this description are 
still incorrectly labeled “hostages”; therefore, it is a politically 
charged and biased term.

Take, for example, the Associated Press’ description of Itay Chen, an 
Israeli soldier serving along the Gaza separation barrier on October 7, 
2023. He is described as a hostage “who was abducted along with two 
other members of his tank battalion”, noting that ”Chen loved basketball 
and studying human biology” and “is survived by his parents, two 
brothers, and a dog named Gucci.”

This is the equivalent of speaking about a Hamas fighter whose body was 
seized by Israeli forces that day by claiming he is a hostage who was 
abducted from his hang glider, loved playing table tennis, and is 
survived by his dog Fufu. In order for the Associated Press to be 
“balanced”, this is literally what kind of description of Hamas fighters 
they would have to publish.

*Israel Bombs Its Own People then Uses Their Bodies*

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that due to the 
delay in handing over the remaining bodies in Gaza, “time is running 
out” and accuses Hamas of delaying the handover of their remains 
purposefully.

In reality, Israel knows full well that exhuming many of these bodies, 
even if Hamas has an idea of precisely where they all may be, takes 
heavy excavation equipment and the work of professionals to retrieve 
them. Note that a minimum of 10,000 Palestinian bodies are also believed 
to be buried underneath the rubble of Gaza, and the process of finding 
them all could take years.

Again, there is no mention in the corporate media of these Palestinians, 
including countless women and children, and no push to see the return of 
their remains. There are no articles talking about who they were, naming 
them explicitly, and discussing their hobbies.

Meanwhile, the some 120 bodies of Palestinians from Gaza who were 
released in three batches back to the besieged territory bore the signs 
of horrific torture. According to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, there 
is “clear evidence of brutal torture”. The human rights group report 
noted the following:

“Medical examinations, forensic reports, and observations by the field 
team revealed conclusive evidence that many victims were killed after 
being detained. Their bodies bore clear marks of hanging, rope imprints 
around their necks, injuries from close-range gunfire, bound hands and 
feet with plastic restraints, and blindfolds. Some bodies were crushed 
under tank tracks, while others showed severe signs of physical torture, 
fractures, burns, and deep wounds.”

Dr. Ismail Al-Thawabta, the Director General of the Government Media 
Office in Gaza, also recently revealed to Al-Jazeera that “We also have 
serious suspicions that Israel has stolen organs from some of these 
martyrs—corneas, livers, and other internal organs—which were clearly 
missing when the bodies were examined.”

There are still over 11,000 Palestinian hostages languishing in Israeli 
military occupation prisons and torture detention facilities run by the 
army.

On the question of the remaining Israeli bodies in Gaza, Israel has long 
understood that extracting their remains requires the use of heavy 
machinery and equipment that is not currently available in Gaza. 
International teams, such as one from Turkiye, have offered to help in 
the efforts to recover the remaining Israeli bodies, yet Israel decided 
to continue keeping the Rafah Crossing closed and would not immediately 
let the needed equipment and teams enter.

The Israeli media has long acknowledged that the issue of retrieving the 
remains of their captives will be complicated due to the mass 
destruction in the territory. Yet, the Israeli political leadership and 
a fully complicit Western media are now selling the idea that Hamas is 
the problem in this regard.

As a result of the delay in returning the Israeli bodies, the regime in 
Tel Aviv has repeatedly threatened to cut down the amount of 
humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Not only is this a blatant violation of 
the ceasefire agreement, but also a violation of international law. Aid 
reaching a civilian population is prohibited from being used as a 
political negotiating tool.

In fact, with aid being part of the Gaza deal in itself, it renders the 
very agreement technically illegal under international law, as 
humanitarian aid is explicitly used as a negotiating chip. This now 
creates a dangerous precedent for future conflicts, where other 
governments may use the threat of imposing famine on a civilian 
population in order to negotiate favorable political outcomes.

Of the Israeli bodies buried under the rubble, many were killed as a 
result of Israeli airstrikes, yet there are no calls for accountability 
over the fact that the Israeli air force murdered its own people or that 
they have dropped so many explosives over Gaza as to cause the crisis of 
the day.

Instead, after having relentlessly bombarded Gaza for over two years, 
the Israelis insidiously use the remains of their own dead in order to 
threaten restarting the genocide.

/(The Palestine Chronicle)/


/– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. 
He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed 
this article to The Palestine Chronicle. /

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