Mass graves discovered at al-Shifa Hospital and in Beit Lahiya
TWO mass graves have been discovered by Gaza’s Health Ministry and the Civil Defence Forces in the north of the Gaza Strip.
The first mass grave was discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and the second was found in Beit Lahiya.
Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, reporting from al-Shifa Hospital, said nine bodies were found before the health officials stopped digging, fearing that they could get targeted by the Israeli drones hovering in the skies above them.
The uncovered bodies had not fully decomposed, which indicated that they had been killed recently.
Some of the people who had been killed and buried appear to have been patients at the hospital and had medical bandages and catheters attached to their bodies.
Family members of the deceased who identified the bodies confirmed that some of those killed were patients. They include an elderly man, a woman, and a man in his 20s.
Doctors and staff from the hospital said that some people were killed outside the main gate (building number 80) of the hospital. Medical staff said they witnessed killings and burials.
In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, another mass grave containing about 20 decomposed bodies was discovered.
Residents said the bodies belong to the Al-Assaf family, and said they were killed during an incursion by the Israeli military forces in the area four months ago.
Hamas has decried Israeli ‘war crimes’ at al-Shifa Hospital.
The Palestinian group said the new mass grave discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza is “horrifying”.
The group said the mass grave includes “several decomposing bodies” that Israeli forces, using military bulldozers, hid under the rubble before withdrawing from the medical complex earlier this month.
Israeli forces have attacked and besieged the hospital several times since October 7, leaving it largely in ruins. Thousands of medical staff, patients, and displaced families were at the facility during the attacks, with witnesses saying hundreds lost their lives as a result.
The latest discovery indicates that there are “no limits” to what Israeli forces are willing to do, Hamas said.
Their crimes are continuing because of the international community’s silence in the face of this “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, the group added.
“The series of ongoing violations, including the discovery of mass graves in al-Shifa, cases of execution, and the hundreds of bodies that remain under the rubble … are clear and well-documented war crimes,” it said.
Hamas called on the international community to bring those responsible to justice.