The invention of the mass grave at Nasser Hospital, got here two weeks after an analogous mass grave was discovered at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza Metropolis.
In a press release this week, the U.N. Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani cited reviews that some our bodies had been discovered with their fingers “tied and stripped of their garments.”
These reviews, which got here from the Gazan authorities, couldn’t be independently verified and the group didn’t present proof for its declare.
At the least one of many our bodies exhumed since Sunday was seen sporting blue medical scrubs in a video posted to social media by a photographer, Haseeb Alwazeer. The individual appeared to have their fingers sure collectively. This physique was mendacity subsequent to others exhumed from the mass grave within the palm grove.
Docs on the hospital and the Gazan Well being Ministry had stated that some individuals who tried to flee the Nasser compound through the Israeli raid had been shot at by Israeli troopers, with some being killed or wounded.
Whereas that declare couldn’t be independently verified, a number of movies verified by The Occasions present gunshot victims mendacity on the bottom simply outdoors the north gate; others present individuals utilizing a rope to pull bottles of water from throughout the road into the hospital complicated to keep away from a street the place victims had been shot.
On the time, the Israeli navy stated that it had “opened a safe route” to evacuate the civilians within the space however didn’t reply to questions on reviews that it had shot at Palestinians attempting to depart the hospital.
Amnesty Worldwide’s senior director of analysis and advocacy, Erika Guevara Rosas, stated human rights investigators and forensic consultants wanted speedy entry to Gaza to make sure that proof of the graves is preserved as a way to guarantee accountability for any violations of worldwide legislation.
“With out correct investigations to find out how these deaths occurred or what violations might have been dedicated, we might by no means discover out the reality of the horrors behind these mass graves,” she stated in a press release.
Israel’s navy left Nasser hospital in late February and continued to function in Khan Younis earlier than withdrawing from southern Gaza earlier this month. The withdrawal allowed Palestinian emergency providers — and relations — to start trying to find the lacking.
Jihad al-Bayouk, 26, stated that he had buried his older brother on the grounds of Nasser on Jan. 24 after he was killed in what he stated was an Israeli drone strike on their residence in Khan Younis. “I made certain to recollect the place so I might come again later and provides him a correct burial in an actual cemetery,” stated Mr. al-Bayouk, 26, by cellphone on Wednesday.
He stated that when he got here again after Israeli forces had withdrawn from the realm he couldn’t discover his brother’s physique or the palm bushes he used to mark the place it was. So he started digging day by day, together with a crowd of others on the lookout for the our bodies of their family members.
“The digging went on for days” earlier than he discovered his brother’s physique on Monday in a special spot than the place he had buried him, Mr. al-Bayouk stated. He stated that two of the three layers of plastic he had wrapped him with had been gone, and the third was torn off however held along with plastic clips.
