In late February, Shiri Bibas and her children, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months old, were laid to rest in a public funeral. Israeli TV channels streamed eulogies, and the somber images were projected in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square. After a year in which the Bibas family became a fixture of rallies across Israel, transformed into a symbol of the righteousness of Israel’s genocide, Zionists and their Western allies mourned. They mourned and demanded retribution.
Much of their rage stemmed from the alleged cause of death: according to IOF spokesman Daniel Hagari, Palestinian fighters “brutally murdered” Ariel and Kfir “with their bare hands”—an account which directly contradicts Hamas’ assertion that the family was killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023. As proof, Dr. Chen Kugel, director of the Abu Kabir National Institute of Forensic Medicine, conducted an autopsy which he claimed showed no evidence of injuries caused by bombing.
Two months on, neither Kugel nor the IOF have publicly released any evidence to support their incendiary claims. It is also widely known that as a matter of policy, the IOF targets vehicles, homes, and tunnels where they know prisoners are being held as part of the Hannibal Directive.
Here, we present the additional case that the forensic report cited by the IOF is likely falsified.
Dr. Kugel and the Institute for Forensic Medicine are not the apolitical experts they purport to be; rather, they serve the political interests of Zionism.
In the aftermath of at least seven highly politicized killings or incidents since 2003, Kugel and the Institute provided forensic “expertise” that directly contradicted available evidence, Palestinian eyewitness testimony, and third-party international assessments. In each case, their “expertise” bolstered improbable Zionist narratives.
It’s also telling that the Institute works closely with ZAKA, the ultra-orthodox disaster response volunteer group which spent the days after October 7, 2023, disseminating falsified and grotesque accounts to an eager Western press corps. At a ZAKA convening last February, Kugel spoke about the Institute’s close ties to the group: "ZAKA is a full partner in all matters of the Institute of Forensic Medicine. I am in constant contact with them and see their dedication to this issue of honoring the dead."
The Murder of Tom Hurndall
In April 2003, 22-year-old Tom Hurndall, a British volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement in Rafah, was shot in the head by an IOF sniper while attempting to shield Palestinian children from Israeli fire. He died after spending nine months in a coma. The IOF initially claimed that Hurndall was targeted because he was carrying a weapon. However, due to international pressure and contradictory eyewitness accounts, the IOF sniper was put on trial–a highly unusual concession.
Kugel appeared as a witness for the defense and argued, remarkably, that Hurndall had died not from the gunshot wound which left him in a vegetative state, but from improper administration of morphine. A British pathologist disputed Kugel’s opinion, arguing in court that Hurndall had clearly died from a traumatic brain injury caused by the sniper’s bullet. In 2006, a British coroner confirmed that Hurndall was murdered. Tom’s mother, Jocelyn, said at the time, “If one is listening to it rationally and legally, it makes no sense. You can’t break the causal link between the shooting and his death.”
The testimony presented by Kugel was so flimsy that the Israeli military court—not known for prosecuting its own soldiers—convicted the soldier of manslaughter.
The Murder of Yousef al-Ramouni
A decade later, in 2014, during a period of heightened tensions after a seven-week war on Gaza, a bus driver named Yousef al-Ramouni was found hanged to death in a bus in Jerusalem. After an autopsy, Kugel and the Forensic Institute concluded that al-Ramouni had committed suicide.
According to both Kugel and the Israeli Health Ministry, the attending Palestinian forensic pathologist, Dr. Saber al-Aloul, concurred with their findings. However, that same day, al-Aloul sharply contradicted the Health Ministry’s report and told the press that al-Ramouni had been the victim of an “organized criminal murder.”
Using Kugel’s report as evidence, Netanyahu told the media: “Yesterday, a bus driver from East Jerusalem committed suicide. The pathological report's findings, which were released to the public, prove it unequivocally. But this did not prevent those inciting to spread these blood libels that he was murdered by Jews.”
Al-Ramouni’s family rejected the Institute’s findings, with his father describing how Yousef had been targeted by Jewish mobs twice while driving his bus route in the days preceding his death. Yousef’s brother, Osama al-Ramouni, told reporters, “We reject the suicide theory. We all know it was settlers who killed him. He had no problems that would make him [commit suicide].” A co-worker also testified that it was improbable for al-Ramouni to have committed suicide, telling the press that his body “was hanged over the steps at the back of the bus in a place where it would be impossible to hang yourself alone.” The Zionist regime never released CCTV footage from the bus depot, which could have proved the absence—or presence—of a lynch mob.
The Murder of Ziad Abu Ein
Just months after the killing of Yousef al-Ramouni, in December 2014, Ziad Abu Ein, a prominent Fatah politician and a minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), was killed outside of Ramallah during a protest against the occupation. Video showed an IOF soldier violently choking Abu Ein, and eyewitnesses reported that Zionist forces fired tear gas at the protest. Other witnesses claimed that he had been headbutted and struck in the chest with a rifle by IOF soldiers. He collapsed moments later and was transported to a nearby hospital before being pronounced dead.
Kugel conducted a joint autopsy with Palestinian and Jordanian doctors. The Palestinian and Jordanian doctors concluded that Abu Ein had died as a result of violent acts, citing wounds and bruises on his head, mouth and windpipe, as well as the inhalation of tear gas. In contrast, Kugel concluded that Abu Ein was killed by attempts to resuscitate him through CPR and blamed underlying heart conditions. Because Abu Ein was a popular figure, the circumstances of his death prompted the PA to publicly cast doubt on the future of its “security coordination” with Israel.
The Murder of Nadeem Nawara
On May 15, 2014, Israeli border police shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian boy, Nadeem Nawara, who was participating in a Nakba Day protest in the town of Beitunia, near Ramallah. Evidence presented by human rights groups, live TV footage of the murder, a detailed reconstruction by Forensic Architecture, and eyewitness testimony formed an overwhelming body of evidence against the Israeli border policeman who murdered Nadeem. But, much like in the case of Tom Hurndall, Kugel attempted to undermine the prosecution’s case in his role as defense witness who was present at Nawara’s autopsy in the occupied West Bank. His testimony undercut the prevailing forensic opinion, arguing that Nawara could not have been shot by the policeman on trial. Despite Kugel’s intervention, the preponderance of evidence helped secure the first ever conviction (and at the time, the first time an Israeli soldier had ever been charged) of an Israeli soldier for the killing of a Palestinian child.
The Murder of Arafat Jaradat
In February 2013, Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat died in custody at Megiddo Prison. He had been detained days earlier by the Israeli army and the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, on suspicion of throwing stones. After an autopsy conducted by Israeli doctor Yehuda Hiss–a director of Abu Kabir, infamous for his admitted practice of organ harvesting–and attended by a Palestinian forensic pathologist, Hiss concluded that Jaradat died of a heart attack. Hiss explained away Jaradat’s broken ribs and bruises across his torso as the result of resuscitation efforts. The attending Palestinian pathologist refuted this interpretation, arguing that Jaradat was beaten to death. This claim was supported by a third-party Turkish pathologist and an Israeli physician, Dr. Ishai Menuchin, who cast doubt on Hiss’s version of events. Quoted in Middle East Monitor, Menuchin said, “You need to be a very bad medic to try and make the heart work by pressing on the area where the ribs were broken.” He continued, “One of his lungs was double its size, and the other 1 and half times larger—the reason he died was because he couldn’t breathe.”
Arafat’s brother, who briefly viewed his body before the autopsy was conducted, told reporters that he had bruises on his legs and forehead, as well as severe swelling around his wrists, possibly due to handcuffs. Palestinian prisoners in Megiddo Prison at the time also testified to Arafat’s good health in the days leading up to his death.
The Murder of Aisha al-Rabi
In October 2018, Aisha al-Rabi, a Palestinian woman from a village near Nablus, was killed by Jewish settlers as she drove home with her family. The attack took place less than 100 yards from an IOF checkpoint. According to eyewitness testimony and photo evidence, Aisha died after a settler threw a large rock through the front windshield, crushing her skull. Kugel emerged yet again, publicly stating that his autopsy did not support the case against the settler detained for killing Aisha. In May 2020, due in part to Kugel’s testimony, the unnamed settler was allowed to return to the West Bank.
The Murder of Muhammad al-Rimawi
In September 2018, the IOF raided the home of Muhammad al-Rimawi in the West Bank village of Beit Rama. Al-Rimawi’s mother and brother both testified that he was taken to a separate room of the house and severely beaten by soldiers until he passed out before being handcuffed and carried into custody. Two hours later, the family was notified of his death. The al-Rimawi family maintained that Muhammad was a healthy young man with no serious illnesses or medical problems.
After an autopsy conducted at Abu Kabir, the Israeli military claimed that Muhammad’s body showed no signs of violence. A Haaretz headline ran the next day: “Autopsy of Palestinian Who Died in [IOF] Custody Shows He Was Not Beaten.” A Palestinian doctor, Rayan al-Ali, was in attendance at Abu Kabir and disputed this assessment, instead concluding, in line with the eyewitness testimony, that al-Rimawi was beaten to death by the IOF.
These stories alone, couched within 76 years of Zionist colonialism, should make us doubt the veracity of their claim that the Bibas family were “brutally murdered” by Palestinian fighters. Yet the Bibas story, after being uncritically regurgitated in newspapers and on cable news, has served its genocidal purpose.
In a speech to IOF cadets shortly after the Bibas family was pronounced murdered, Netanyahu held up a family photo, telling the next generation of soldiers, “I want you to engrave [this image] upon your hearts, so that we always remember what we’re fighting for and who we’re fighting against.”
He subsequently announced that the IOF had drawn up battle plans to re-invade Gaza. In mid-March, a few weeks later (after repeated Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement), the IOF resumed its genocidal war on Gaza—blockading, bombarding and invading the strip yet again.
The IOF has killed or wounded at least 100 children and infants each day since the resumption of its genocidal war on March 18.