Hostages in Gaza have been kept incommunicado despite Israel’s calls on the Red Cross to arrange visits and verify their wellbeing, Reuters reports.

Hagar Mizrahi, a health ministry official, said she and her fellow panellists — a forensic pathologist and a physical trauma clinician — have been watching clips shot by the Hamas attackers themselves, cellphone video by Palestinian spectators and CCTV footage of the hostage-taking “again and again, frame by frame”.

That has allowed them to map out life-threatening wounds and spot any cessation of breathing or other essential reflexes.

Additional considerations have been hostages’ rough handling by captors, the reduced chances of them getting adequate medical care in Gaza and accounts of deaths by former fellow hostages.