​Israeli military surgeons have been training on corpses donated by US citizens without the consent of the deceased.

The University of Southern California (USC) sells donated bodies to the US Navy and since 2018 it has provided at least 32 cadavers to an Israeli military surgical training course that takes place four times a year in Los Angeles.

Student journalists at Annenberg Media first reported on the training program in October 2025. Recently, AJ+ docuseries Direct From With Dena Takruri teamed up with them to take the investigation further in a new documentary.

“This is an army that is actively involved in a genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Dr Mohamad Raad, a USC-affiliated physician, told AJ+. “It’s horrifying. These things shouldn’t be normal.”

Another USC-affiliated physician who spoke to AJ+ on condition of anonymity said they stumbled upon contracts that mention the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 2024, after the university’s crackdown on a Gaza solidarity encampment.

“Every question that came up, I just looked into it, and every answer I found was more horrific than what I had imagined. It violates every ethical lesson that I was ever taught.”

The families of those who donated their bodies expressed outrage at the revelations.

Miriam Volpin, whose mother Jeanette was a donor, told AJ+ she learned about the IDF training programme during Annenberg Media’s initial investigation. “I was furious and sick to my stomach,” she said.

Jeanette’s granddaughter, Sarah, added she believes her grandmother would not have donated her body had she known it might be used in military training.

Many of the bodies USC supplies to the Navy for the IDF training programme are actually obtained from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Neither of the universities’ donor agreements state that the bodies could end up being used to train military medics.

Since news of the programme broke, some who planned to donate their bodies to UCSD, like Wendy Smith and her husband, have revoked their body donations. “I would really not like to support anything that Israel is doing right now,” Smith told AJ+.

Sasha Ryu, a USC student journalist, told Novara Media that other news outlets have neglected the story. “I’m very grateful Al Jazeera found out about this story and pursued an investigation. We tried to tip off numerous other publications, but for many months, it was mainly just our student outlet calling attention to this issue.”

“Now it’s reached a bigger audience than we ever anticipated. I’m very happy the families’ voices are finally being heard,” she added.

​Watch the documentary, Israeli Military Medics Are Training on Dead Americans, on the @ajplus YouTube channel, and read the original investigation on uscannenbergmedia.com.

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