” The dead cannot speak. But the living can witness. Do not look away.”

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that anger without clarity is noise, but anger with witness is truth.

I. Introduction: The Quiet Horror

In May 2026, an investigation by the AJ+ documentary series Direct From revealed a story so disturbing that it has been largely buried by mainstream media. The University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) — two of America ‘s most prestigious academic institutions — have been selling donated human bodies to the United States Navy for combat medical training involving Israeli military surgical teams .

Since 2018, USC has supplied at least 89 “fresh cadavers” under contracts with the US Navy. Of these, at least 32 were used specifically to train Israeli military surgical teams at the Navy Trauma Training Centre in Los Angeles General Medical Centre. The Navy has paid USC over $860,000 for these bodies, with at least one contract still ongoing as of October 2025 and a notice of intent to renew until at least 2029.

The bodies came from people who donated themselves to science — often with the belief that they were contributing to medical education and research, not to military training for a foreign army engaged in a genocide. Donor documents did not indicate that the cadavers would be used for military training, either for the US or Israel. Families were not informed.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a contract.

This article examines the cadaver trade, the torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees, the treatment of wounded Palestinians by Israeli forces, and the broader moral collapse of a state that has turned medicine into a weapon. The evidence is overwhelming. The silence is damning. And the extraction — the logic that treats human beings as resources — does not end with death.

II. The Reanimation of the Dead

The training program is not theoretical. A 2020 medical paper co‑authored by USC and US Navy instructors describes a four‑day “combat trauma surgery skills course” tailored specifically for Israeli military forward surgical teams — units that operate close to the front lines.

During the training, the cadavers are “reanimated” using a process called perfusion: artificial blood is pumped through the body to simulate active, lifelike bleeding on the battlefield. Trainees practice emergency interventions on simulated combat injuries, including:

· Gunshot wounds to the chest and limbs

· Blast injuries to the face and torso from improvised explosive devices (IEDs)

This is not standard medical education. Several trauma surgeons interviewed for the AJ+ documentary emphasised that using perfused cadavers is an exceptionally rare practice, restricted to specialised military exercises.

The US Navy defended the arrangement, stating that experienced trauma surgeons “recreate complex injury patterns with surgical tools to deliver a high‑fidelity, hyper‑realistic training environment”. USC has declined repeated requests to detail the exact methods used to simulate these battlefield wounds.

For the families of donors, the betrayal is profound. Miriam Volpin’s mother, Jeanette Volpin, a 101‑year‑old World War II flight nurse, donated her body to USC. When Miriam learned about the IDF training programme, she said: “I was furious and sick to my stomach”. Her granddaughter, Sarah, added that she believes her grandmother would not have donated her body had she known it might be used in military training.

Jennifer Gomez’s grandmother, Jean McNeil Sargeant, donated her body to UCSD in 2012. Gomez told AJ+: “I didn ‘t realise that there would be international militaries coming here, training on our family’s bodies. Especially one that’s been accused of war crimes and is actively killing people”.

At least two people have revoked their body donations after learning of the programme. Wendy Smith, an English professor, said: “I would really not like to support anything that Israel is doing right now”.

This is not medicine. It is logistics.

III. The Torture of the Living

The same week the cadaver story broke, The BMJ published a comprehensive review of torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites. The evidence is staggering.

At least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 2023 — at least 46 in Israel Prison Service facilities and 52, all from Gaza, in military custody. A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel, entitled “Death Sentence for Palestinians in Custody,” described the toll as unprecedented and said the actual figure may be higher.

PHRI said initial post‑mortem findings pointed to a pattern of severe abuse, including head injuries, internal bleeding, and broken ribs, as well as extreme malnutrition and denial of lifesaving care. The report called for an independent international investigation.

The documentation of torture is not new. The BMJ review notes that torture by Israeli soldiers and health workers has been “extensively documented over several decades by United Nations independent experts, and many human rights organisations including the United Against Torture Coalition, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B‘Tselem”. By the Israeli government’s own admission, torture has been used “systematically” against Palestinian people.

Depraved acts include extreme physical, psychological, and sexual violence, the denial of medical care, sleep deprivation, the use of prolonged solitary confinement, attacks by dogs under the control of their handlers, being urinated on, and prolonged shackling of limbs — in some cases causing injuries requiring amputation.

After the barbaric incident in July 2024 in which nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the torture and sexual assault of a Palestinian man — leaving him with ruptured intestines, broken ribs, and lung trauma — elected members of the Israeli Knesset joined protests in support of the soldiers. A survey by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies found that 65% of Israeli Jews believed the arrested soldiers should not face criminal charges.

The Israeli lawyer Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi who leaked footage of the attack has since been arrested for doing so, with the government accusing her of “damaging Israel ‘s global standing”.

This is not a failure of individual soldiers. It is a culture.

IV. Medical Complicity: The Betrayal of the Healer

Particularly troubling is the long‑standing and well‑documented complicity of Israeli health workers in torture. The BMJ review states: “Recent survivors of detention have reported that Israeli health workers have been physically violent towards detainees, knowingly denied medical treatment, and neglected detainees‘injuries”.

Israeli whistleblowers have reported that detainees at the Sde Teiman detention site were denied analgesia during painful procedures, while doctors working at the site were told not to write their names on official documents — with one doctor revealing that “officials feared they could be identified and charged with war crimes”. Others reported they lacked the training for treatments and procedures they were made to administer.

An Israeli Ministry of Health policy document reviewed by the New York Times explicitly stated that detainees treated at the Sde Teiman field hospital should be blindfolded and handcuffed to their beds.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel produced a report concluding that “conditions and the medical care standards at Sde Teiman are a low point for medical ethics and professionalism” and “that the Israeli healthcare system has enabled the ethical violations previously outlined concerning the medical treatment of Gazan detainees”.

The Israeli Medical Association has failed to investigate allegations of complicity among its members. The BMJ authors argue that “the WMA and many national medical associations have failed to act in a timely and decisive manner on growing evidence of torture and medical complicity, which now spans several decades”.

This is not medicine. It is complicity.

V. The Targeting of Palestinian Healthcare Workers

The total number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention sites exceeded 9,100 as of October 2025. Detailed reporting from Healthcare Workers Watch Palestine identified 405 cases of unlawful detention of Palestinian healthcare workers since October 2023. At least five Palestinian healthcare workers are known to have been killed in Israeli detention in the same period.

Among those killed was Adnan al‑Bursh, a respected orthopaedic surgeon who was illegally detained by Israeli forces in December 2023. He was held without charge and died in prison in April 2024 after severe mistreatment.

As of October 2025, at least 95 Palestinian healthcare workers remained in detention, including Hussam Abu Safiyeh, paediatrician and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was abducted and unlawfully detained in December 2024.

These are not isolated incidents. The BMJ review notes that they must be understood in relation to evidence that suggests a broader strategy of targeting healthcare professionals, aimed at “undermining the Palestinian healthcare system and maximising harm inflicted against the Palestinian people”. This strategy extends to the killing of more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since October 2023, and clearly documented patterns of systematic and targeted destruction of healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and essential medical equipment.

These acts constitute clear violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, intended to protect medical personnel during armed conflict.

VI. The Victims of the Training

The BMJ review notes that the training Israeli military surgeons receive — including on perfused cadavers — is applied on the battlefields of Gaza. Israeli military doctors and surgeons have embedded with brigades on the front lines since 2023.

The very skills practiced on the bodies of Americans who thought they were donating to science are now being used to treat the wounds of Israeli soldiers — and, by extension, to enable the continuation of the genocide.

But what of the wounded Palestinians?

Under the Geneva Conventions, occupying powers are required to provide medical care to the wounded and sick of the occupied population. Yet evidence suggests systematic denial. Detainees are denied medical treatment. Hospitals are bombed. Ambulances are targeted. Healthcare workers are killed in detention.

A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel called for an investigation into the denial of lifesaving care to Palestinian detainees. The BMJ review documents that survivors have repeatedly reported being denied medical treatment for their injuries.

The contrast could not be starker.

In Los Angeles, cadavers are perfused with artificial blood to simulate combat injuries for Israeli surgeons. In Gaza, real blood flows in the streets, and real surgeons are killed.

VII. The Sale of Stolen Land

The same week the cadaver story broke, occupation authorities issued a tender for 3,401 settlement units in the area designated as E1, east of occupied Jerusalem — a measure that would cut off Palestinian access to East Jerusalem and which senior officials declared was intended to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” once and for all .

This is not a secret. It is a campaign.

The sale of stolen Palestinian land is not new. Israeli real estate companies actively advertise properties in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank — including Gush Etzion and Ma ‘ale Adumim — at exhibitions in London, Montreal, and New York. Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

The same logic that captures bodies captures land. The same logic that permits the extraction of organs permits the extraction of territory. The same logic that enables the sale of cadavers enables the sale of stolen homes.

Extraction is not a crime against humanity. It is a business model.

VIII. The Sexual Abuse Scandal and the Culture of Impunity

The sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees is not new. In July 2024, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the torture and sexual assault of a Palestinian man held in Israeli detention — leaving him with ruptured intestines, broken ribs, and lung trauma. As noted, elected members of the Knesset joined protests in support of the soldiers, and 65% of Israeli Jews believed they should not face criminal charges.

This is not an aberration. It is a pattern.

The Israeli military has long had a documented problem with sexual harassment and assault within its ranks. Whistleblowers are silenced. Perpetrators are protected. The whistleblower who exposed the Sde Teiman rape — Major General Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi, the Israeli military ‘s chief advocate — was not celebrated. She was arrested, charged with “obstructing justice,” and investigated for a suicide attempt. The perpetrators were protected. The truth‑teller was punished.

This is the institutionalisation of impunity. This is what happens when a society teaches its soldiers that violence against the “other” is permitted, even celebrated.

And the same culture that permits the sexual abuse of detainees permits the desecration of the dead. The same impunity that protects rapists protects the institutions that sell bodies to foreign militaries.

The cycle is closed. The extraction is complete.

IX. The Failure of International Law

The post‑WWII rules‑based international order was supposed to prevent this kind of extraction. The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the Geneva Conventions — all were designed to create a framework in which might would not make right.

That order is now “under destruction,” as the 2026 Munich Security Report bluntly stated.

The International Court of Justice has recognised its prima facie jurisdiction to investigate Israel for carrying out genocide in Gaza. The ICJ‘s orders are ignored. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. They are ignored. The UN Security Council is paralysed by the US veto.

The system does not work — not because it is inherently flawed, but because the powerful have refused to apply it equally.

The victims — Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian — are not people. They are obstacles.

The Western response to Russia ‘s invasion of Ukraine — united, resolute, armed — stands in stark contrast to the response to Israel’s assault on Gaza. The double standard is glaring. And it is not unnoticed in the Global South.

The rules‑based order is not collapsing. It is being abandoned.

By the very powers that created it.

X. Conclusion: The Moral Collapse

The evidence is clear. The pattern is unmistakable.

· The bodies of Americans, donated in good faith to science, have been used to train the surgeons who patch up the soldiers who drop the bombs on Gaza.

· Palestinian detainees are tortured — sexually, physically, psychologically — by soldiers and health workers alike, with impunity and public support.

· Healthcare workers are targeted, detained, killed.

· Hospitals are bombed. Ambulances are destroyed.

· The wounded are denied care.

· The dead are desecrated — not in Gaza, in Los Angeles.

This is not a failure of individual morality. It is a systemic collapse.

The State of Israel is not a state in crisis. It is a state in moral collapse.

The same collapse that permits the sale of stolen land permits the sale of stolen bodies. The same collapse that permits the torture of detainees permits the desecration of the dead. The same collapse that permits the bombing of hospitals permits the training of surgeons on perfused cadavers.

The question is not whether the cycle can be broken. The question is whether we will choose to break it.

Not with violence — with clarity.

Andrew Klein

References

1. AJ+ / Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). Direct From documentary: US university sells dead bodies to navy for Israeli military training.

2. Tribune Online. (2026, June 1). Israeli military, US Navy train medics on dead Americans — Report.

3. Press Telegram. (2025, October 3). USC sold dead bodies to Navy for Israel Defense Forces medical training program.

4. FOX 11 Los Angeles. (2025, October 2). USC sold cadavers to military for IDF training: report.

5. Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). USC sold cadavers to US Navy for Israeli military training.

6. Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). Iran war updates: Tehran ponders US deal; Lebanon-Israel talks under way.

7. el‑Solh, S., Smith, J., Nimerawi, A., & Gilbert, M. (2025). Torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites. The BMJ, 391, r2347.

8. Physicians for Human Rights Israel. (2025). Death Sentence for Palestinians in Custody.

9. The Jerusalem Post. (2025, November 17). PHRI reports 98 Palestinian deaths in Israeli prisons.