It is a macabre discovery, which has once again relaunched the battle for information between the different protagonists in the conflict. This Tuesday, April 23, an official of the Civil Defense of the Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas, affirmed that his teams had discovered since Saturday the bodies of around 340 people in mass graves within the hospital grounds. Nasser. Pointing the finger directly at the Israeli army, accusing it of having killed and buried these people.
Israel directly denied “baseless” Palestinian accusations that they were behind the mass graves. “During his operation in the area of the Nasser hospital” in the city of Khan Younes, “in an attempt to locate hostages and missing persons, bodies buried by Palestinians were examined […] with caution and only in places where information indicated the possible presence of hostages”, explains the Israeli army, assuring “to have preserved the dignity of the deceased”, and that “the bodies examined were not those of hostages were put back in their place.
The UN wants an “independent” and “transparent” investigation
At the center of these diametrically opposed versions of the facts, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called this Tuesday for an “independent, sincere and transparent investigation into the deaths”, demanding that it include investigators international organizations, “given the prevailing climate of impunity”. The official said in a press release “horrified by the destruction of the Nasser hospital and that of Al-Chifa”, in Gaza city, “and by the announced discovery of mass graves in and around these sites” .
According to officials in Gaza, 283 bodies were found at the Nasser hospital, a figure that the UN High Commission is trying to verify, without being able to confirm for the moment. “The victims would have been buried deep in the ground and covered with waste,” said a spokesperson for the UN organization, Ravina Shamdasani, at a press briefing, adding that elderly people, women and the injured were among them. among the dead. Others were “found with their hands tied and without clothing”.
She also indicated that the figure put forward by the Israeli army of some 200 people killed during the last assault on the al-Chifa hospital, between March 18 and early April, could be “underestimated”. To date, she said, “we cannot corroborate the exact figures” of those killed in the two hospitals: “This is why we insist on the need for international investigations.”
Israeli operations in Gaza hospitals in question
In any case, this discovery once again calls into question Israeli military operations in hospitals in the Gaza Strip. The last one a few weeks ago, within the al-Chifa establishment, had reduced the latter to an “empty shell” littered with human remains, the World Health Organization (WHO) assured in early April. “Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. And intentionally killing civilians, detainees and other people considered hors de combat is a war crime,” recalled Volker Türk.
Israel, for its part, continues to justify the importance of these operations, accusing Hamas of using hospitals in the Gaza Strip as command centers, which the latter denies. This Tuesday, the Israeli army told AFP that it had recently arrested around “200 terrorists” inside the Nasser hospital, during a “precise and targeted operation” against the Palestinian movement Hamas in this sector, without inflicting “damage to the hospital, patients and medical staff”. Medicines intended for the hostages were discovered, never handed over and unused”, as well as a “large number of ammunition”, also assures the Israeli general staff.