A recent investigation has claimed that 2,842 Palestinians in Gaza “vaporised” since 2023 by Israel using banned high-temperature ‘thermobaric bombs’, Al Jazeera reported.
Gazan Civil Defence teams told Al Jazeera that these people had gone missing since the Israel-Hamas war broke out and their remains have not been found.
Spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said, “We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered.”
“If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces, blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps,” he added.
What do we know about ‘thermobaric bombs’?
Thermobaric or thermal bombs, also called vacuum or aerosol bombs, are munitions with fuel-air explosive properties which create extreme temperatures and pressure waves.
Vasily Fatigarov, a Russian military expert, who spoke to Al-Jazeera, said that the weapons don’t just kill, they obliterate matter.
The effect is caused by a two-stage explosion.
First, the weapons disperse a cloud of fuel or fine particles into the air. Then a detonation occurs, creating a fireball and a vacuum effect that draws in surrounding air and oxygen.
Blast temperatures can reach up to 3,500 degrees Celsius. “To prolong the burning time, powders of aluminium, magnesium and titanium are added to the chemical mixture,” Fatigarov said.
The weapons are designed to maximise blast over a wider area. The damage is mainly caused by overpressure rather than shrapnel like in conventional explosives.
‘Bodies missing from Gaza’s Al-Tabin school’
The Al Jazeera also mentioned one site, Al-Tabin school in Gaza, as an example. After an Israeli strike, families were unable to find the bodies of people who were present at the location before the attack.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, said, “The boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius.”
“When a body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees combined with massive pressure and oxidation, the fluids boil instantly. The tissues vaporise and turn to ash. It is chemically inevitable.”
The use of thermobaric weapons is governed by international humanitarian laws, which specify that the parties in a conflict must avoid attacks on civilians. Concerns have been raised by human rights organisations about the use of the weapons in densely populated urban areas.