UN push for probe into report of Gaza graves

Credible investigators ‘must have access’

The United Nations called yesterday for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves uncovered at two major hospitals in war-torn Gaza that were raided by Israeli troops.

Credible investigators must have access to the sites, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, and added that more journalists need to be able to work safely in Gaza to report on the facts.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said yesterday that he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Shifa medical centre in Gaza City and Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis as well as the reported discovery of mass graves in and around the facilities after the Israelis left.

He called for independent and transparent investigations into the deaths, saying that “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators”.

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law,” Turk said. “And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are ‘hors de combat’ (incapable of engaging

in combat) is a war crime.”

United States State Department spokesman Vedant Patel called the reports of mass graves at the hospitals “incredibly troubling” and said US officials have asked the Israeli Government

for information.

The Israeli military said its forces exhumed bodies that Palestinians had buried earlier as part of its search for the remains of hostages captured by Hamas during its October 7 attack

that triggered the war. The military said bodies were examined in a respectful manner and those not belonging to Israeli hostages were returned to their place. It says it killed or detained hundreds of militants

who had taken shelter inside the two hospital complexes, claims that could not be independently verified.

The Palestinian civil defence in the Gaza Strip said yesterday that it had uncovered 283 bodies from a temporary burial ground inside the main hospital in Khan Younis that was built when Israeli forces were besieging the facility last month. At the time, people were not able to bury the dead in a cemetery and dug graves in the hospital yard, the group said. The civil defence said some of the bodies were of people killed during the hospital siege. Others were killed when Israeli forces raided the hospital.

Palestinian health officials say the hospital raids have destroyed Gaza’s health sector as it tries to cope with the mounting toll from over six months of war.

The issue of who could or should conduct an investigation remains in question.

For the UN to conduct an investigation, one of its major bodies would have to authorise it, Dujarric said. “I think it’s not for anyone to prejudge the results or who would do it.”

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said after visiting Israel and the West Bank in December that a probe by the court into possible crimes by Hamas militants and Israeli forces “is a priority for my office”.

The discovery of the graves “is another reason why we need a ceasefire, why we need to see an end to this conflict, why we need to see greater access for humanitarians, for humanitarian goods, greater protection for hospitals” and for the release of Israeli hostages, Dujarric said.

—AP