The invention of the mass grave at Nasser Hospital got here two weeks after an identical 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 stories that some our bodies had been discovered with their arms “tied and stripped of their garments.”
These stories, which got here from the Gazan authorities, couldn’t be independently verified and the group didn’t present proof for its declare.
Not less than one of many our bodies exhumed since Sunday was seen carrying blue medical scrubs in a video posted to social media by a photographer, Haseeb Alwazeer. The individual appeared to have their arms 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 mentioned that some individuals who tried to flee the Nasser compound through the Israeli raid have 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 folks utilizing a rope to tug bottles of water from throughout the road into the hospital advanced to keep away from a highway the place victims had been shot.
On the time, the Israeli army mentioned that it had “opened a safe route” to evacuate the civilians within the space however didn’t reply to questions on stories that it had shot at Palestinians making an attempt to depart the hospital.
Amnesty Worldwide’s senior director of analysis and advocacy, Erika Guevara Rosas, mentioned human rights investigators and forensic consultants wanted speedy entry to Gaza to make sure that proof of the graves is preserved with the intention to guarantee accountability for any violations of worldwide legislation.
“With out correct investigations to find out how these deaths befell or what violations could have been dedicated, we could by no means discover out the reality of the horrors behind these mass graves,” she mentioned in a assertion.
Israel’s army 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 looking for the lacking.
Jihad al-Bayouk, 26, mentioned that he had buried his older brother on the grounds of Nasser on Jan. 24 after he was killed in what he mentioned was an Israeli drone strike on their dwelling 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,” mentioned Mr. al-Bayouk, 26, by cellphone on Wednesday.
He mentioned that when he got here again after Israeli forces had withdrawn from the world he couldn’t discover his brother’s physique or the palm timber he used to mark the place it was. So he started digging daily, together with a crowd of others in search of 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 distinct spot than the place he had buried him, Mr. al-Bayouk mentioned. He mentioned that two of the three layers of plastic he had wrapped him with have been gone, and the third was torn off however held along with plastic clips.
