A British Palestinian surgeon has told Al Jazeera that photographs he received of Palestinians’ bodies handed over by the Israeli army are “highly indicative of organ harvesting”.

Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah said he was “sent photographs of the bodies that were received by the Ministry of Health from the Israeli army”.

“The bodies show clearly surgically removed lungs, heart, kidneys and liver – done in a professional, surgical way, using sharp bone saws, causing zero damage to surrounding tissues,” he said.

“These bodies also had liquid nitrogen burns on their skin, but no other injuries. It’s unlikely the organs were retrieved post-mortem. All of these bodies belonged to Palestinians whose families said they had been imprisoned alive. So all of this is highly indicative of organ harvesting.”

Abu Sittah said the photographs were taken on October 17, shortly after Israel handed over 120 bodies. His comments support claims by Gaza Government Media Office director, Ismail al-Thawabta, who accused the Israeli army of stealing organs from Palestinian corpses and called for an immediate international investigation. 

 “The (Israeli) occupation handed over 120 corpses through the International Committee of the Red Cross over the past three days,” Ismail Thawabta, director of the government media office, told Anadolu, adding that “most arrived in deplorable condition, showing evidence of field executions and systematic torture.”

Thawabta said some of the deceased were returned “blindfolded and bound by hands and feet, while others displayed signs of strangulation and rope marks around their necks, indicating deliberate killing.”

“Parts of many corpses were missing, including eyes, corneas, and other organs,” Thawabta noted, which he said confirms that the Israeli army “stole human organs while holding the bodies,” calling the act a “barbaric crime.”

The Palestinian official urged the international community and human rights organizations to “immediately form an international investigation committee to hold Israel accountable for serious violations against the bodies of the martyrs and the theft of their organs.”

Israeli government officials have previously admitted that Israel harvested the skin, corneas, heart valves and bones of Palestinians up until the year 2000.

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Israel admits to organ thefts

In December 2009, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who conducted the interview, told Al Jazeera on Monday that Hiss had said the “body parts were used by hospitals for transplant purposes – cornea transplants. They were sent to public hospitals [for use on citizens].

“And the skin went to a special skin bank, founded by the military, for their uses”, such as for burns victims.

The practice is said to have ended in 2000.

The interview was also reported on Israel’s Channel 2 television, which quoted an Israeli military statement that said: “This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer.”

Israel’s health ministry said in the Channel 2 report that at the time the guidelines for transplants “were not clear” and that for the last 10 years “Abu Kabir has been working according to ethics and Jewish law”.

Scheper-Hughes, who is a professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, said that she made the interview public because of the controversy last summer over allegations of organ harvesting made by a Swedish newspaper.

In same year in August the Aftonbladet newspaper ran an article alleging that the Israeli army had stolen body organs from Palestinian men after killing them.