As dozens of families and friends continue to fear for the lives of the hostages kidnapped in the Gaza Strip, a team of experts from Israel’s Health Ministry has now declared several people dead. The experts rely on video recordings and statements from released hostages.
In the current exceptional situation it is possible to declare someone dead without a medical examination. The purpose is to house family members. They must be given the opportunity to mourn when there is no hope that their relatives will survive, committee head Hagar Misrahi told Israeli radio station Kan on Sunday.
Seven hostages declared dead since the end of the ceasefire
Since the end of the ceasefire on Friday, Israeli authorities have confirmed that six civilians and an army colonel have been killed in custody. To make such decisions, films of the October 7 Hamas attack would be closely examined, Mizrahi said. These are recordings that the radical Islamists themselves have put online. She and her team also rely on videos from Palestinians who observed and filmed the attacks. There are also images from surveillance cameras.
The entire material was “reviewed over and over, shot by shot,” Misrahi said. Together with a forensic pathologist and a doctor specialized in physical trauma, she searches the images for life-threatening injuries that the hostages may have suffered, but also for apparently lifeless bodies. The assessment would also take into account reports from freedmen about the deaths of hostages.
Girl presumed dead recently released
According to Misrahin, all affected families have so far accepted the team’s decision. But even if this is not the case, this is respected – for example if a family is only prepared to mourn when a body is handed over. The experts are probably aware of the risk of making mistakes arising from the case of a kidnapped girl. Her father had already been unofficially informed of his daughter’s death during the Hamas attack. But the child had been kidnapped and released during the ceasefire.
Source: Krone
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