By Farrukh Abadi
Nearly 300 bodies have been uncovered so far across three mass graves at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. It is said that another hundred are still missing.
The bodies were discovered last weekend by Palestinian civil defense crews following the Israeli retreat on April 7. The bodies include elderly women, children, and young men.
At least one of the mass graves is reportedly comprised of corpses the IDF exhumed during their offensive on the city. Following the attacks on the city in January, Palestinians made temporary burials of their family members in the area due to a lack of safe access to cemeteries. After returning to the site earlier this month, Palestinians found that their family members’ bodies had been unearthed by the IDF in an attempt to identify Israeli prisoners of war. The bodies were thrown together in a mass grave.
Col. Yamen Abu Suleiman, Director of Civil Defense in Khan Younis, said that some of the bodies had their hands and feet tied, stating: “there were signs of field executions. We do not know if they were buried alive or executed. Most of the bodies are decomposed.”
This comes as another mass grave was found last week at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Al-Shifa Hospital was the largest medical facility in Gaza until it was destroyed in an Israeli attack during the first weeks of March. The attack left hundreds dead inside and around the hospital, many still wearing bandages and catheters, including those in mass graves surrounding the hospital.
Following the destruction of al-Shifa hospital in March, an Israeli government spokesperson praised the operation as the “gold standard for urban warfare” and that the attack had “surgical force… with not a single civilian casualty.”
As bodies continue to be unearthed throughout Gaza, Israel has ramped up its air raids on the southern city of Rafah over the past few weeks, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge.
Meanwhile, on Monday the US House of Representatives passed a foreign military “aid” bill that includes $26 billion for Israel, replenishing the genocidal forces of US imperialism’s lackey.
photo: Still from a video released to Al Jazeera on Civil Defense personnel uncovering mass graves in the southern Gaza strip
