Thousands of Palestinians ‘disappeared’ allegedly due to weapons used by the military Israel in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out in October 2023. The meaning of this disappearance is that Palestinian victims of Israeli military annexation cannot find their bodies because of thermal and thermobaric ammunition.
The alleged use of thermal and thermobaric ammunition is based on a special investigation report Al Jazeeraa leading media based in Qatar. The investigation is as reported Al Jazeera and reported Anadolu AgencyFriday (13/2/2026), stated in a special investigation report Al Jazeera entitled ‘The Rest of the Story’ which was broadcast on Monday (9/2) local time.
In the report, the disappearance of thousands of Palestinians was linked to Israel’s use of high-temperature weapons, which are allegedly capable of causing human tissue to evaporate without leaving a trace.
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Next, in the report Al Jazeera which cited data collected by Gaza civil defense teams since the start of the war in October 2023, Al Jazeera said that their special investigation documented at least 2,842 Palestinians classified as ‘evaporated’, leaving no remains other than blood spatter or small fragments of flesh. These figures are based on field documentation in the Gaza Strip, and are not estimates.
Elimination Methods in Gaza
The spokesman for the Gaza civil defense authority, Mahmoud Bassal, told Al Jazeera that his team used an ‘elimination method’ at the attack sites. The elimination method is to compare the number of known occupants in the building hit by the attack with the number of bodies found afterwards.
“If a family tells us there are five people inside, and we only find three intact bodies, we consider the remaining two to be ‘evaporated’ only after a thorough search yields nothing but biological traces — blood spatter on the walls or small scalp-like fragments,” he explains.
A statement from a Palestinian resident, Yasmin Mahani, stated that she could not find the body of her son, Saad, after she carried out an intense search in the ruins of the al-Tabin school in the Gaza City area which was destroyed by Israeli attacks on August 10 2024.
“I entered the mosque and found myself stepping on flesh and blood,” Mahani said Al Jazzera Arabic.
Mahani searched a number of hospitals and morgues for days. “We didn’t find anything from Saad. There wasn’t even a body to bury. That was the most difficult part,” said Mahani, who is one of thousands of Palestinians whose family members “vanished” after the Israeli offensive.
Thermal and Thermobaric Ammunition
A number of experts and eyewitnesses, in the report Al Jazeeraattributed this phenomenon to the systematic use of thermal and thermobaric munitions, supplied by the United States (US) by the Israeli military. Please note, thermal and thermobaric ammunition is prohibited internationally,
This ammunition is often referred to as a vacuum bomb or aerosol bomb, which is capable of producing temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius. Several types of US-supplied ammunition are used by Israel in the Gaza Strip, according to reports Al Jazeeraincludes the MK-84 bomb, the BLU-109 bunker buster bomb, and the GBU-39 precision glide bomb.
Russian military expert, Vasily Fatigarov, explained that thermobaric weapons not only kill, but destroy matter. Unlike conventional explosives, this weapon deploys a cloud of fuel that creates a huge fireball and a vacuum effect.
Fatigarov said the US-made MK-84 bomb, which weighs 900 kilograms and contains tritonal, is capable of producing heat of up to 3,500 degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, the BLU-109, a bunker buster, is capable of creating a large fireball in a closed space, burning down everything within its reach. Investigation report Al-Jazeera said this bomb was used in the Israeli attack on Al-Mawasi, Gaza Strip, in September 2024.
GBU-39 bomb, according to reports Al Jazeeraused in the attack on Al-Tabin School. Fatigarov said GBU-39 is capable of “killing via pressure waves that damage the lungs and thermal waves that burn soft tissue.” The Gaza civil defense team confirmed the discovery of GBU-39 fragments in locations where Palestinians were declared ‘disappeared’.
Responding to this report, legal experts assessed that this indiscriminate use of weapons not only involved Israel, but also the Western countries that supplied them.
“This is a global genocide, not just a genocide by Israel,” said lawyer and lecturer at Georgetown University in Qatar, Diana Buttu.
Watch the video ‘The type of Israeli bomb that disappeared thousands of Palestinians without a trace’:
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date:2026-02-13 15:18:00
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