Report: Israeli army not responsible for mass grave in Gaza
Published: Thursday, Apr 25th 2024, 03:00
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According to a media report, a mass grave discovered in the Gaza Strip was not created by the Israeli army, contrary to the claims of Islamist Hamas. As the "Jerusalem Post" reported on Wednesday evening, citing analyses of images, the mass grave near the Nasser Hospital in Chan Junis in southern Gaza already existed before Israeli soldiers took action against Hamas on the ground there. This was the result of the evaluation of satellite images and film material by unnamed independent analysts. The claims spread by Hamas and the Arab media that Israeli soldiers had buried the bodies of Palestinians in order to "hide" them were false, the newspaper wrote.
According to CNN, the Hamas-controlled civil defense claimed to have uncovered 324 bodies on the site after Israel's army withdrew. The information cannot be independently verified. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed his horror at the reports of the discovery of mass graves near hospitals in Gaza and called for an independent investigation into the reasons behind the deaths. According to international humanitarian law, hospitals are entitled to very special protection. "And the deliberate killing of civilians, prisoners and other persons who are not in combat is a war crime," it said.
According to Türk's office, which cited information from the civil defense, some of the bodies had their hands tied. "We don't know if they were buried alive or executed. Most of the bodies are decomposed," CNN quoted the head of the civil defense in Chan Junis as saying. In a statement on Tuesday evening, the Israeli embassy in Geneva declared that the claim that Israeli forces had buried the bodies of Palestinians there was unfounded. Israeli soldiers had only examined the bodies in the grave in search of Israeli hostages. "The investigation was carried out carefully and exclusively in places where intelligence indicates there may have been hostages". The dignity of the deceased was respected. The bodies of Palestinians were returned to the same place.
©Keystone/SDA
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