The rescue teams of the civil defense of the Gaza Strip have already recovered 392 bodies from several mass graves in the Naser hospital in Khan Yunis, in the south of the enclave, reports the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, some with signs of torture.
Most of the bodies have not yet been identified, according to the authorities, who organized a press conference this Thursday to share the latest data on the exhumations. Furthermore, among the bodies there were around twenty with signs of having been buried alive, according to the Qatari network Al Jazeera, present at the press conference, reported today.
In his first reaction to news of the first mass grave discovered in Khan Younis last Friday, a military spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, said yesterday that the grave in question had been dug by Gazan citizens a month ago, and that Israel was not involved. .
“Any attempt to blame Israel for burying civilians in mass graves is categorically false and a mere example of a disinformation campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The Israeli Army has admitted to “examining” bodies buried in the courtyards of the Naser hospital in search of possible dead Israeli hostages. During the Israeli siege of this hospital, medical staff and patients were forced to bury some of the deceased in the courtyards, unable to leave the facility for fear of Israeli artillery.
But among the hundreds of corpses found there are children, women and also corpses with their hands tied and probes still tied to their bodies.
The scenes are reminiscent of what happened at the Al Shifa hospital, the most important in the Strip located in the north of the enclave, which was completely out of service after a two-week Israeli siege at the end of March. After the departure of Israeli troops on April 1, Gazan authorities discovered a mass grave with a dozen buried bodies, including patients, women and the elderly.
In total, some 400 bodies were recovered within the hospital perimeter and surrounding areas in the days after the troops left.
The Israeli Army withdrew from Khan Younis during the early hours of April 7, after four months of fighting and bombing in this area, also against homes and civilian populations in which entire Gazan families died.
