A newly released medical report from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a grave warning on Tuesday, stating that the bodies of many deceased hostages could soon be lost forever, eliminating the possibility of recovering them for burial.
The document highlights two central dangers. The first is a critical loss of knowledge: many of the deceased hostages’ burial sites are known to only a handful of people who may die or vanish amid the fighting, leaving behind no trace or record. With each day that passes, this gap in intelligence grows, making it increasingly unlikely that reliable, first-hand information can be secured to support recovery missions.
The second danger involves physical degradation: the extreme environmental conditions in Gaza—such as intense heat, flooding, and structural collapses—are rapidly destroying the condition of the bodies. This damage makes it harder not only to retrieve the remains but also to identify them and determine how these individuals died, a step that may be necessary in any future investigative efforts.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum emphasized that this situation is especially poignant on Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism, a day set aside to remember the nation’s lost lives. They said the occasion should reinforce the national responsibility to ensure that even the deceased hostages are brought back and laid to rest with honor.
The report stresses that time is not on Israel’s side. The longer action is delayed, the more evidence disappears, the fewer clues remain, and the lower the chances become of recovering the bodies. This delay, the Forum argues, not only harms the grieving families but also obstructs a broader process of healing and reconciliation. The authors call on leaders to act swiftly to recover all 59 hostages still held in Gaza, including the 35 confirmed dead.
Prof. Hagai Levine, who heads the Health Team within the Forum, said: “There is a real danger to the deceased hostages, one that could impair the ability to return them for proper burial. The dignified return of the fallen hostages for burial, alongside the return of the living for rehabilitation, is a fundamental condition for healing the personal, social, and national wound. It is a moral and national obligation of the State of Israel toward its citizens, part of the unwritten covenant upon which Israeli society rests. Without the return of the deceased hostages and in the absence of certainty, the families become the living-dead, and the fallen remain the dead-alive. This wound undermines the very trust upon which the social fabric relies.”
{Matzav.com}