Heinous Crimes: Israel Admits Harvesting Organs From Dead Palestinian Bodies Without Permission

CNN - Israel harvested organs from bodies in the 1990s without permission of family members, the former head of a state-run forensic laboratory said in a newly released interview.

Government officials acknowledge that the practice happened, but emphasize that it ended years ago.

In an interview in 2000, which was released to an Israeli TV channel and broadcast over the weekend, Dr. Yehuda Hiss -- who was once head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute -- discussed the practice.

"We started to harvest corneas for various hospitals in Israel," Hiss said in the interview on Israel's Channel 2 network.

"Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the families," he said. Read more.