Palestinian authorities in Gaza on Thursday increased the number of bodies found in a mass grave on hospital grounds from 283 to 392, amid conflicting accounts between Israeli and Gazan authorities over how and when some bodies were buried. Ta.
“This is the largest mass grave since the war began,” Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the Gaza Civil Defense Agency, the search and rescue arm in Hamas-held territory, said Thursday before calling for an international investigation.
A New York Times analysis of social media videos and satellite images found that Palestinians had dug at least two of the three burial sites in the weeks before Israeli forces raided the sites.
Gaza authorities say a mass grave was dug on the hospital grounds before the Israeli attack in February, but later accuse Israel of opening the site to add more bodies.
It was not clear how or exactly when those buried at the Nasser medical complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis died.
The Times was unable to determine the cause of death for each person, but the first burials took place in January and February during weeks of Israeli military offensives in the city.
Israel on Thursday denied accusations that it was responsible for digging graves at the complex, although it had previously said it opened them to search for the bodies of hostages taken to Gaza.
“Misinformation is being spread about the mass grave discovered at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis,” Israeli military spokesman Major Nadav Shoshani said in a statement. “The graves in question were dug by Gazans several months ago. This fact is supported by documents on social media. Any attempt to accuse Israel of burying civilians in mass graves is clearly It is false and just another example of a disinformation campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel.”
carrying the body found at Nasser Hospital on Tuesday. Videos shared on social media and reviewed by The New York Times show two sites with multiple mass graves dug in Nasser. Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In the chaos of six months of war, it became common for Gazans to bury their dead in hospital grounds or in backyards, often in haste and without ceremony. But the rising body count shows the human toll of war and how hospitals have become flashpoints.
Medical centers are often the first place for people displaced by Israeli shelling, and thousands of people are housed in improvised tents on the premises. Israeli officials say the medical center is the focus of attacks because Hamas fighters are holed up in and under the facility, and that it is the only way to eradicate the insurgency. . Hamas and his medical personnel deny the accusations. Aid groups, researchers and international organizations are increasingly calling Israel’s dismantling of Gaza’s medical capacity “systematic.”
Two sites with mass graves were dug in Nasser and bodies have been buried since January, according to a video shared on social media and reviewed by The New York Times.
Satellite images show that a large mass grave, first dug by Gazans under palm trees in the southern part of the site, was bulldozed and destroyed by Israeli forces, who dug up and reburied the bodies. This lends credibility to Israel’s claim.
There are no clear signs that Israeli forces dug new graves or added bodies to existing graves.
On April 21, a video was shared on social media showing a third cemetery on the other side of a brick path that passes next to the first mass grave. The new graveyard was built during or after the Israeli occupation of the hospital site, but it is unclear who dug it. Some of the graves had signs in Arabic that read “Unknown Martyrs.”
The discovery of the grave last weekend has sparked international calls for an independent investigation.
Joining the European Union and United Nations, President Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan has called on the Israeli government to “thoroughly and transparently” investigate “deeply disturbing” reports of mass graves. I asked.
“We are in contact with the Israeli government at various levels,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday. “We want answers,” he added.
The discovery of a mass grave at Nasser Hospital, where a woman mourned on Tuesday, came two weeks after a similar mass grave was found at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital. Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The discovery of the mass grave at Nasser Hospital comes two weeks after a similar mass grave was discovered at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
In a statement this week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani cited reports that some bodies were found with their hands tied and their clothes stripped.
These reports came from Gaza authorities and cannot be independently verified, and the group provided no evidence for its claims.
At least one of the bodies exhumed since Sunday was seen wearing blue medical scrubs in a video posted on social media by photographer Haseeb al-Wazir. The man’s hands appeared to be tied. The body lay next to bodies exhumed from a mass grave in a palm grove.
Doctors at the hospital and the Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli soldiers shot at some people as they tried to flee the Nasser compound during the Israeli assault, causing casualties.
Although the claim could not be independently verified, multiple videos reviewed by the Times showed the shooting victim lying on the ground just outside the north gate. Other photos show people using ropes to drag water bottles across the street and into the hospital grounds to avoid the road where the victim was shot.
At the time, Israeli forces said they had “opened safe routes” to evacuate civilians in the area, but did not respond to questions about reports that they had shot at Palestinians as they tried to leave the hospital.
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director of investigations and advocacy, said human rights investigators and forensic experts were working to ensure that grave evidence was preserved to ensure accountability for violations of international law. He said he needed immediate access to Gaza.
“Without a proper investigation to find out how these deaths happened or what violations were committed, the truth of the horror behind these mass graves cannot be uncovered. may never be possible,” she said in a statement.
Israeli forces were discharged from Nasser Hospital at the end of February and continued operations in Khan Yunis until withdrawing from southern Gaza earlier this month. The withdrawal allowed Palestinian emergency services and their families to begin searching for the missing persons.
Jihad Albayuk, 26, said he buried his brother on the grounds of Nasser on January 24 after he was killed in an Israeli drone strike on his home in Khan Yunis. “I made sure to remember the location so I could come back later and bury him properly in a real cemetery,” Albayuk, 26, said by phone Wednesday.
He said that when he returned after Israeli forces withdrew from the area, he could not find his brother’s body or the palm tree he had used as a landmark. So he, along with a crowd of others searching for the remains of his loved ones, began digging in the earth every day.
“The excavation continued for many days,” Albayuk said, before finding his brother’s body on Monday in a different location from where he was buried. He said two of the three layers of plastic he was wrapped in were missing, and the third layer had been torn off but was held in place with plastic clips.
Corrections have been made to
April 25, 2024
:
Due to an editorial error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly listed the timing of the first burial. It started in January, not mid-February.
How corrections are handled
— Abu Bakr Bashir, Hiba Yazbek, Arik Toler and Riley Mellen reporting from Jerusalem and London
