Al Jazeera reports:
According to the Al Jazeera Arabic investigation, The Rest of the Story, Civil Defence teams in Gaza have documented 2,842 Palestinians who have “evaporated” since the war began in October 2023, leaving behind no remains other than blood spray or small fragments of flesh.
Experts and witnesses attributed this phenomenon to Israel’s systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons, often referred to as vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius [6,332 degrees Fahrenheit].
Does the article give any proof that Israel used thermobaric weapons in civilian areas (not aiming at tunnels, for example)? Not at all.
But let’s first look at how the very specific number “2,842” was calculated.
The figure of 2,842 is not an estimate, but the result of grim forensic accounting by Gaza’s Civil Defence.
Spokesperson Mahmoud Basal explained to Al Jazeera that teams use a “method of elimination” at strike sites. “We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered,” Basal said.
“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 are the chances with any explosion that there will be three intact bodies and two completely incinerated? Practically zero. With conventional explosives it is almost impossible to have full incineration - there is a very high temperature but it lasts for a very short time which isn’t enough to make bodies disappear. And for thermobaric explosions, it is extremely unlikely that three bodies would be intact and two evaporated in an enclosed area.
What are the chances the family is lying to claim “martyr” money, or covering up for a Hamas member who was killed separately? Very high.
The article then quotes a Russian military expert:
Vasily Fatigarov, a Russian military expert, explained that thermobaric weapons do not just kill; they obliterate matter. Unlike conventional explosives, these weapons disperse a cloud of fuel that ignites to create an enormous fireball and a vacuum effect.
“To prolong the burning time, powders of aluminium, 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].”
According to the investigation, the intense heat is often generated by tritonal, a mixture of TNT and aluminium powder used in United States-made bombs like the MK-84.
The first two paragraphs are about thermobaric weapons. Then Al Jazeera switches to conventional weapons like the MK-84 - which has nothing to do with what the expert stated. In fact, the article lists several specific bomb types it identified in Gaza, and not one of them are thermobaric.
The investigation identified specific US-manufactured munitions used in Gaza that are linked to these disappearances:
MK-84 ‘Hammer’: This 900kg [2,000lb] unguided bomb packed with tritonal generates heat up to 3,500C [6,332F].
BLU-109 bunker buster: Used in an attack on al-Mawasi, an area Israel had declared a “safe zone” for forcibly displaced Palestinians in September 2024, this bomb evaporated 22 people. It has a steel casing and a delayed fuse, burying itself before detonating a PBXN-109 explosive mix. This creates a large fireball inside enclosed spaces, incinerating everything within reach.
GBU-39: This precision glide bomb was used in the al-Tabin school attack. It uses the AFX-757 explosive. “The GBU-39 is designed to keep the building structure relatively intact while destroying everything inside,” Fatigarov noted. “It kills via a pressure wave that ruptures lungs and a thermal wave that incinerates soft tissue.”
Why can’t they name the thermobaric bomb type that they are accusing Israel of using? Why are they using evidence of conventional bombs to support their thesis of thermal weapons?
If Israel used thermobaric weapons on urban areas, the blast crater would be distinctive. It would be very shallow and show burn marks around the perimeter. None of the many media examinations of craters in Gaza mention anything like that.
The next section shows how unserious this analysis is:
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, explained the biological impact of such extreme heat on the human body, which is composed of roughly 80 percent water.
“The boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius [212F],” al-Bursh said. “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.”
This is not true. It takes time for water to boil. A conventional weapon hits 3,000 degrees for microseconds; a thermobaric weapon for much longer, milliseconds. But actual vaporization of bodies requires enough time to heat up all the fluids to boiling point. This is unlikely even if Israel was using thermobaric weapons - which Al Jazeera could not show at all.
There is also an underlying assumption here that is pure antisemitism. There is no military advantage for Israel to target civilians in this or any other way. The entire article rests on the reader believing that Israel is evil enough to divert military goals to kill Gazans. And if they only managed to kill less than 3,000 Gazans by thermobaric weapons in two years, that is a pretty inefficient use of the most powerful non-nuclear weapons in existence.
I would be most interested in seeing the list of 2,842 supposed victims. If they were really vaporized by thermobaric weapons they should be mostly women and children. I would bet that this list shows mostly adult males - Hamas members who were buried in tunnels, or perhaps they really were incinerated by localized thermobaric explosions that Israel used to destroy tunnel networks.
This is a propaganda piece, pretending to be a scientific investigation. And the same Dr. Munir al Barsh also accused Israel of leaving booby trapped toys in Gaza. He is a Hamas employee and a major part of Hamas’ information war who first made the “vaporization” accusation in 2024 , not an objective observer.
It’s pure projection - DARVO at its finest. On Oct 7 Jews were burned alive and vaporized , such that some were identified only through microscopic fragments. And Hamas routinely booby trapped toys and children’s backpacks - not to mention the children themselves.
So Hamas commits the most horrific crimes, denies them, and then accuses Israel of those very crimes.
Space laser? Did we use the space laser????