At dawn on August 10, 2024, Yasmin Mahani walked through the smoking ruins of al-Tabin school in Gaza City searching for her son, Saad.
She found her husband screaming, but no trace of the boy.
“I went into the mosque and found myself stepping on flesh and blood,” Mahani told Al Jazeera Arabic for an investigation that aired on Monday, Al Jazeera reported.
She searched hospitals and morgues for days.
“We found nothing of Saad. Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”
More broadly, Mahani is among Palestinians reported missing during the Gaza war, which Gaza health authorities say has killed more than 72,000 people.
According to the Al Jazeera Arabic investigation "The Rest of the Story", Gaza Civil Defense teams have documented 2,842 Palestinians described as having “evaporated” since the Israeli genocidal war began, with only blood spray or small fragments reportedly left.
Experts and witnesses cited in the investigation attributed this outcome to the repeated use by the Israeli regime of thermal and thermobaric weapons, sometimes called vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures above 3,500 degrees Celsius.
Turning to the weapons analysis, the investigation examined how certain chemical mixtures may produce extreme heat capable of destroying human remains.
Vasily Fatigarov, a Russian military expert cited in the report, said thermobaric weapons disperse fuel that ignites into a large fireball combined with a vacuum effect rather than a conventional blast.
“To prolong the burning time, powders of aluminum, magnesium and titanium are added to the chemical mixture,” Fatigarov said.
“This raises the temperature of the explosion to between 2,500 and 3,000 degrees Celsius (4,532F to 5,432F).”
The investigation said such heat may be generated by tritonal, a TNT and aluminium powder mixture used in some US-manufactured bombs, including the MK-84.
MNA
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