RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Authority (PA) formed an inquiry panel to investigate the harvesting of organs of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers, a senior official said on Thursday.
Hassan Abu Libdeh, director of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s office, said a panel from the ministries of Interior, Health and Foreign Affairs, “has already started work by collecting all available information about the issue.”
Abu Libdeh told Voice of Palestine Radio the PA “will take the appropriate measures after the panel concludes its investigation which would constitute violations of human rights.”
The controversy over allegations of organ harvesting began in August when the Swedish daily Aftonbladet accused the Israeli Army of harvesting organs of Palestinians killed by its soldiers.
However, Israel described the article published in Aftonbladet as “groundless,” “outrageous” and “anti-Semitic.”
The formation of the panel came a day after members of a Palestinian family called on legal and human rights groups to form an independent inquiry panel to investigate what they believe was the harvesting of organs from their son after he was killed.
Ahmed Bilal Ghanem, from the village of Immatin in the governorate of Nablus in northern West Bank, was killed in 1992. The family said the Israeli soldiers took the body for two days and then handed it over without internal organs. The family accused the PA “of not doing enough to follow up the case.”
Palestinian Fatah lawmaker Najat Abu Baker visited Ghanem’s house on Wednesday and told the family: “You are the ones who know the truth.” “The Israeli Army is stealing the bodies of Palestinians killed by its soldiers, and then after one day or two, they bring the bodies back to their families without organs,” said Abu Baker.
She added that Ghanem’s family expressed readiness to do all needed for the investigation, including “reopening the grave and taking samples in order to prove the truth.” She added: “What Israel is doing is against humanity.”
Palestinian researcher and expert in prisoners’ affairs, Abdulnasser Farwaneh, told Arab News the findings published by the Swedish newspaper are true.
“All the facts, evidence and testimonies over the past few decades regarding the way the occupation forces were treating and killing innocent civilians don’t leave room for doubt about the credibility of the report in the Swedish newspaper,” he said.
He added that hundreds of Palestinian and Arab prisoners have disappeared in Israeli detention centers and prisons.
“This policy of hiding prisoners is surely connected to what the Swedish newspaper published,” Farwaneh said. “It’s possible that all those missing prisoners, or a large number of them, were deliberately killed so that their organs could be stolen and used illegally. The remains of these prisoners are then hidden in secret cemeteries known as the Cemeteries of Numbers.”
Farwaneh added that there was also good reason to believe that the Aftonbladet report was true because many bodies of Hezbollah gunmen that were returned by Israel were missing organs.
He added that Israeli soldiers had “executed” more than 50 Palestinian civilians after arresting them during the second intifada, which began in September 2000. “This could be related to what the Swedish newspaper reported about organ harvesting,” he said.
Farwaneh expressed deep admiration for the Swedish newspaper and the journalist who reported the allegations, Donald Bostrom, and called on the international media to follow suit and expose Israeli “atrocities and war crimes” against Palestinians.
