Saudi condemns massacres by Israel following discovery of mass graves
Ankara, Turkey - Saudi Arabia on Wednesday condemned the Israeli war crimes committed against Palestinians following the discovery of mass graves in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
In a statement, the kingdom’s Foreign Ministry expressed ‘condemnation of the continued and unchecked heinous war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces, the latest of which is the mass graves discovered in the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis’.
It also said the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law ‘will only result in more violations and exacerbation of humanitarian tragedies and destruction’.
The statement reiterated Saudi Arabia’s call for the inter
national community to assume ‘its responsibility to stop the Israeli occupation’s attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip’.
Over 300 bodies have been recovered so far from the mass grave at Nasser Medical Complex after the Israeli army with
drew from the city on April 7 following a four-month ground offensive, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7 last year, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.
More than 34,180 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,000 others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.
Meanwhile, hundreds of illegal Israeli settlers on Wednesday stormed into the Al-aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem to mark the Jewish Passover holiday.
In a statement, the Islamic Endowments Department in Jerusalem said nearly 703 illegal settlers, who were protected by the Israeli forces, stormed the mosque.
Passover, which commemorates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt during the time of Prophet Moses, is considered one of the most important holidays on the Jewish religious calendar.
The Israeli forces imposed restrictions on the movement of Palestinians inside the Al-aqsa Mosque complex during the settlers’ tour in its courtyards, the statement said.
Witnesses told Anadolu that the Israeli forces were heavily deployed inside the mosque to secure the settlers who entered the mosque in groups from the Al-mugharbah Gate area, west of the holy mosque.
Al-aqsa Mosque is the world’s third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area the Temple Mount, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times. Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-aqsa is located, during the 1967 ArabIsraeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognised by the international community.