Knesset loosens medical confidentiality rules to ID bodies

The Knesset passed a law on Monday that would allow doctors or medical institutions to share medical information on patients in order to help identify bodies or causes of death.

According to the new law, medical information is only permitted to be shared with the National Forensic Medicine Center as well as experts who assist in body identification such as anthropologists and toxicologists.

The need for easier ways to identify bodies has risen drastically since Hamas's massacre on October 7 which led to a massive load on the system. The process of identifying victims was made all the more difficult due to the state of some of the bodies which made them almost impossible to identify.

Another major legal change

In another law passed on Monday evening, the Knesset authorized the National Security Cabinet to make decisions on declarations of war and taking significant military action.

Within the same law, a clause was added, which will be valid for four months, allowing officers that rank below the IDF chief of staff to extend arrests of "illegal fighter" which include people who take part in or abet terrorism against Israel and who don't count as prisoners of war according to the Geneva Conventions.

Usually, only the chief of staff can sign warrants to extend the arrests of such people, but for the next four months, other officers will be allowed to as well.