The mother says she never told the Swedish “journalist” that her son’s organs had been stolen. And the jihadist’s brother says that the family has no evidence that his organs were stolen. But living in the West Bank as they do, even they are starting to believe it.
Aftonbladet Blood Libel Update: “Palestinian family: We didn’t say organs taken,” by Khaled Abu Toameh in the Jerusalem Post, August 25 (thanks to Benedict):
The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn’t know if the accusations were true or not.
The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992.
He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence.
His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. “The bullets hit him directly in the heart,” she said.
Ghanem’s younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother’s organs had been stolen.
“I don’t know if this is true,” he said. “We don’t have any evidence to support this.”
Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later.
The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son’s organs had been stolen.
However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians….
Ibrahim Ghanem, a relative of Bilal, said that the family never told the Swedish photographer that Israel had stolen organs from the dead man’s body.
“Maybe the journalist reached that conclusion on the basis of the stitches he saw on the body,” he said. “But as far as the family is concerned, we don’t know if organs were removed from the body because we never performed our own autopsy. All we know is that Bilal’s teeth were missing.”…