Gaza officials and Hamas say 50 bodies have been exhumed from the hospital

Gaza officials and Hamas say 50 bodies have been exhumed from the hospital

Palestinian Territories, April 21, 2024 (BSS/AFP) – Gaza’s civil defense said health workers on Sunday uncovered at least 50 bodies of people killed by Israeli forces and buried at a hospital in the southern town of Khan Yunis.

The Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

In a statement to AFP, the civil protection agency said the remains were discovered in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex.

“Within the Nasser Medical complex, mass graves have been dug by the Israeli occupation… we were shocked by the presence of bodies of 50 martyrs yesterday in one of the pits,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil protection organization, told AFP.

“We are continuing the search today and waiting for all the graves to be exhumed to provide a final number of martyrs.”

He claimed that some of the dead had been tortured.

“Some of the bodies were not wearing any clothes, which certainly indicates that the victims suffered torture and ill-treatment,” Bassal said.

In mid-February, heavy fighting raged in the area surrounding the hospital, and on March 26, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles surrounded it.

In a separate statement on Sunday, Hamas condemned what it said was a “mass grave of those executed in cold blood and buried with military bulldozers in the hospital courtyard.”

It was said that more than fifty bodies had been recovered.

Several of the bodies wrapped in white shrouds were later collected by relatives, said an AFP photographer who reported that civil defense workers dug up bodies from the courtyard on Sunday.

Hospitals in Gaza have not been spared from the Israeli assault, with the military accusing Hamas of using the facilities as command centers and to hold hostages kidnapped during the October 7 attack.

The World Health Organization said on April 6 that the Palestinian territory’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City, had been reduced to ashes by an Israeli siege last month, leaving an “empty shell” with many bodies.

WHO staff who gained access to the destroyed facility described gruesome scenes of bodies only partially buried, with limbs protruding and the stench of decomposition.

Israel is involved in a major military attack on Hamas militants in Gaza after they launched an attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7.

The unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, Israelis and foreigners, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

About 250 people were abducted to Gaza during the attack, 129 of whom remain in captivity, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 34,097 people in Gaza so far, mostly women and children, according to Israel’s Health Ministry.