Editor's note: This article contains graphic descriptions of death. Some links include graphic imagery.
In February 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that Israeli forces had used weapons in strikes on the Gaza Strip that made thousands of Palestinians "evaporate." The claim appeared to come from an investigation by Al Jazeera, a media network that is primarily funded by the government of Qatar.
According to the network's investigation (archived), it was Israel's use of "internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons" that caused the graphic deaths.
One user who shared the claim on X wrote, "israel is now using 'thermobaric weapons' Palestinian's are now being 'evaporated' 2842 turned to dust. Shocking reading."
(X user @Fx1Jonny)
The claim and Al Jazeera's reporting also circulated on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), Instagram, Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking whether it was true that weapons used by Israeli forces in Gaza had caused Palestinians to "evaporate."
Snopes could not independently verify Al Jazeera's claim that Israeli strikes had "evaporated" thousands of people in Gaza.
We also could not independently verify the use of thermobaric weapons in Gaza. The bombs that Al Jazeera's investigation focused on were not thermobaric but remained capable of causing great damage and death. Legal reviews and media reports suggested thermobaric weapons were not outright prohibited, as Al Jazeera's investigation suggested.
Given the above, we leave this claim unrated.
We contacted Al Jazeera for more details about its investigation. We also contacted the U.S. State Department to ask whether it sent thermobaric weapons to Israel, as some posts claimed. We await replies to our queries.
In response to a request for comment on Al Jazeera's investigation, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said in a written statement that, "The IDF firmly rejects the claims cited." The statement continued:
The IDF uses only lawful munitions. The aerial bombs employed by the IDF are standard munitions used by other militaries around the world. As a rule, the IDF does not comment on the use of specific types of munitions.
Parsing the investigation
The Al Jazeera article followed an investigation broadcast on its Arabic-language TV channel on Feb. 9, 2026, titled "The Evaporators." The investigation focused on three U.S.-made bombs that authorities in Gaza reportedly linked to strikes where bodies had "evaporated": the MK-84 "Hammer," the BLU-109 "bunker buster" and the GBU-39.
Articles summarizing the investigation in English and Arabic (archived) both claimed that Israeli forces used so-called thermobaric weapons to "evaporate" Palestinians.
Thermobaric weapons strike in two phases: First, the bomb emits a large cloud of explosive material that a second explosion sets alight. The second explosion creates a fireball, a blast wave and a resulting vacuum that sucks oxygen out of the nearby air. The bombs can reportedly "pulverize" human bodies because of the high temperatures involved in the explosions and resulting fireball.
According to a review of international law by Arthur van Coller, a law professor at South Africa's University of Fort Hare, the use of thermobaric weapons is not outright illegal under international legislation. Their use can be legal under certain circumstances and with certain considerations.
Al Jazeera reported that Gaza's Civil Defence said Israeli strikes had "evaporated" 2,842 people since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023. According to a spokesperson, the service deemed a person "evaporated" if Civil Defence workers could find only "biological traces—blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps," rather than a whole or partial body when accounting for people involved in a strike.
The bombs
The MK-84 "Hammer," the BLU-109 "bunker buster" and the GBU-39 — the three bombs that were the focus of Al Jazeera's investigation — are not thermobaric weapons. MK-84 and BLU-109 bombs are filled with Tritonal, a military-grade explosive, that explodes when triggered.
While the bombs' explosions can reach high temperatures, they do not use thermobaric technology, which involves two stages of explosions.
Al Jazeera said it had linked MK-84 "Hammer," BLU-109 "bunker buster" and GBU-39 bombs to instances of people "evaporating." It was not clear whether the media outlet also claimed the bombs in question were thermobaric.
Reports of 'evaporated' people date back to 2023
Sources including Harvard University researchers and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have found evidence of the use of MK-84 "Hammer" and GBU-39 bombs by the Israeli military in Gaza. The U.S. government has reportedly sent thousands of MK-84 "Hammer," "bunker buster" and other bombs to Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
The Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health said (archived) on Feb. 11, 2026, that 72,045 Palestinians had died in the Israel-Hamas war. (In late January 2026, Israel, which previously did not recognize the ministry's death tally for the conflict, accepted its estimate.)
The war started on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. By February 2026, Hamas had returned all 251 hostages, though many died before their return.
At the time of this writing, Hamas and Israel had moved on to the second phase of a U.S.-brokered peace plan, which involved the formation of a "Board of Peace" to oversee a transitional government in Gaza. Despite a ceasefire, war-related deaths in Gaza continued to rise.
DeepL.com provided translations from Arabic into English for this report.