Parts of a missile lie amid debris of buildings destroyed during previous Israeli bombardment, in Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip on April 29, 2024<\/p>\n
A Geneva-based right group urges an investigation into Israel\u2019s potential use of banned thermal weapons in its genocidal war campaign against Gaza which could evaporate or melt victim bodies. <\/strong><\/p>\n Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor in a report on Tuesday said that testimonies received by the rights group show that victims\u2019 bodies appear to have evaporated or melted as a result of Israel\u2019s bombing of residential homes in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n \u201cAn international committee of experts must be established to look into the weapons Israel has been using as part of its genocide in the Gaza Strip, ongoing since 7 October 2023, including the potential use of bombs that produce such high heat that victims\u2019 bodies evaporate,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n According to the Euro-Med Monitor report, thousands of bodies in Gaza remain missing and they \u201cno longer exist\u201d and may have \u201cturned to ashes,\u201d raising questions about the type of bombs used in the attacks.<\/p>\n The report added that the \u201cshockingly high\u201d death toll in Gaza raises fears about the potential use of \u201cthermal weapons\u201d, or what are known as \u201cvacuum bombs\u201d, well-known in military circles for their efficacy in demolishing caves and underground tunnel complexes.<\/p>\n Israel claims that the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has dug an extensive network of tunnels under schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure as cover for its activities to justify its targeting of those facilities.<\/p>\n These claims have never been completely verified and in some cases were disproved by media investigations.<\/p>\n The report further quotes a Gaza resident, Ahmed Omar, who lost 15 members of his family, including his parents, in an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home on October 15, 2023.<\/p>\n Omar told Euro-Med Monitor that despite \u201cstrenuous attempts\u201d to retrieve the victims\u2019 bodies, three victims\u2014Raghad Saleh Farwaneh, 14, Ola Saleh Farwaneh, 7, and Rahaf Ahmed Qanita, 8\u2014 were never found while they were present in the house at the time of the attack.<\/p>\n Jamal Awni who also lost seven family members in an Israeli bombing in Deir al-Balah on January 6, told the rights group that all efforts to find his 28-year-old daughter Shaima had been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n Gaza Civil Defense Service has also in several statements pointed to the \u201cdissolution of victims\u2019 corpses and their conversion into ashes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAn international investigation must be launched into Israel\u2019s probable use of internationally banned weapons, including thermobaric bombs,\u201d Euro-Med Monitor said.<\/p>\n It also highlights that the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and international humanitarian law all forbid the use of thermal bombs against civilians in populated civilian areas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also classifies the use of thermal bombs as a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n Two weeks into the war, Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry warned in a statement that \u201cmedical staff monitored the usage of unusual weapons that caused severe burns to the bodies of the martyrs and wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n Analysts believe that the Gaza war is the latest laboratory for Israel\u2019s arms industry as the regime is known to test its weapons on Palestinians in its offensives against the occupied nation.<\/p>\n At least 34,568 Palestinians have been killed and 77,765 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.<\/p>\n