Israel 'confirms organ harvesting' Published Monday 21/12/2009 (updated) 23/12/2009 09:19 [MaanImages] Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – Israel has confirmed that its forensic scientists in the 1990s took organs from dead bodies, including those of Palestinians, without their families’ consent, an Israeli television report said.
Israel’s Channel 2 TV aired an interview on Saturday with the former director of the Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr Yehuda Hiss, in which he admitted to taking skin, corneas, heart valves, and bones from Israeli soldiers, Israeli civilians, Palestinians and foreign workers.
The report appeared to confirm the premise of an article in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet, which caused an explosive controversy when it appeared in August. The article quoted Palestinians alleging that Israel returned their relatives bodies with their chests sewn up, suggesting organ harvesting.
Israeli officials denounced the report at the time, labeling it "anti-Semitic," but did not comment on the specific allegations.
The interview with Hiss was filmed in 2000 by an American academic, Nancy Sheppard-Hughes, a professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, who said she released the footage in the wake of the Aftonbladet controversy.
In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place. "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer," the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.
In the interview, Hiss describes the steps he and other scientists took to conceal the thefts.
"We used to take corneas without plucking out the eyes. We used to glue them shut. We did that for the purpose of scientific advancement," Hiss said in the interview.
"We used to take skin from the backs of dead people, and the families wouldn’t notice that because they buried the dead without turning them over," another pathologist is quoted as saying in the report.
Hiss said he ignored Israeli law that prohibits harvesting organs without a family’s consent.
"We used to send organs to Israeli hospitals, particularly Tel Hashomer in Tel Aviv, because many doctors there were friends of mine. We didn’t ask for money in return, but four years later, the hospital gave us a microscope. We also sent organs to Hadassah Hospital, and in return they gave us a video camera that can film corpses from inside," Hiss was quoted as saying.
According to Channel 2, In 1986, Israel established a skin bank. Skin supplied by the Abu Kibir institute was used in transplants for wounded soldiers and burn patients.
The right-wing Israeli Knesset member Aryeh Eldad, a plastic surgeon, was also quoted on the program saying, “We had orders to harvest organs without families consent.”
Former Israeli MK Arieh Eldad who is a surgeon specialized in plastic surgery and burns said, according to Israeli TV report, "We had orders to harvest organs without families consent."
Lawsuits were filed against the institute, however, including by the families of Israeli soldiers. One of these came from the father of a soldier, who appeared on the Channel 2 report saying that he opened his son’s coffin to find that his neck was cut and his eyes plucked out.
Under mounting pressure, Hiss was fired in 1998.
Israel’s Health Ministry told Channel 2 that all harvesting had been done with permission and, "For the last 10 years, Abu Kabir has been working according to ethics and Jewish law."
In an interview conducted in the year 2000, Dr Yehuda Hiss, former head of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute near Tel Aviv, admitted that in the 90's pathologists at the institute harvested the organs of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians, and foreign workers.

In 125 cases, Dr. Hiss and his subordinates removed organs, bones, and tissue without the permission of, and often against the wishes of, the families of the deceased.

Abu Kabir included a “museum of skulls” set up by Dr. Hiss that included the skulls of IDF soldiers that had been shot in the head. He has additionally been investigated for selling organs and falsifying testimony.

Hiss was fired from his position as Director of the institute shortly after the courts became involved, but has since remained the Chief Pathologist at the Institute.

In the interview, Hiss claims that, "body parts were used by hospitals for transplant purposes — cornea transplants.  They were sent to public hospitals."  Facts from the interview were later confirmed by an Israeli military statement on the issue which claimed, "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."

What is still not confirmed, however, is whether or not the Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, was correct when it claimed that Israeli soldiers were stealing organs from both dead and living Palestinians, and whether or not Israelis were intentionally killing Palestinians for their organs. In the controversial article published in Aftonbladet, it was alleged that Israeli soldiers stole the organs of Palestinians after killing them.  Israeli officials have vigorously denied the charge that Palestinians are being killed for their organs and have called the article in Aftonbladet "anti-semitic".