UNITED NATIONS (APP) – Amid continuing Israeli assaults in Gaza, the United Nations Security Council has called for an immediate and independent investigation into the reported mass graves containing hundreds of dead Palestinians near hospitals in the besieged enclave.
In a statement, the 15-member Council expressed their “deep concern over reports of the discovery of mass graves in and around the Nasser and al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza, where several hundred bodies, including women, children and older persons, were buried.”
The Council members underlined the need for “accountability” for any Israeli violations of international law and called for “unimpeded access to all locations of mass graves in Gaza to conduct immediate, independent, thorough, comprehensive, transparent and impartial investigations”.
The statement comes as some 400 bodies have been recovered at the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip while around 300 bodies have been discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The two major hospitals as well as other medical facilities in the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly targeted since the beginning of Israel’s aggression on the Palestinian territory.
At least 49 bodies were discovered by health workers at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Wednesday, according to a medical official and Gaza authorities, in the latest finding at the facility.
Seven mass graves have been uncovered across the Gaza Strip during the Israeli war launched in October last year, with three in Al-Shifa Hospital, three in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis and one in Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
The mass graves are only part of the gruesome series of massacres but should be a turning point due to the sheer scale of murdered and mutilated bodies found, according to experts.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said last month that Al-Shifa in Gaza City had been reduced to an “empty shell”, with many bodies found in the area.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that “the presence of urinary catheters or splints, which were found to be still attached to some of the patients’ bodies during the exhumation process, as well as medical files that were buried with them in Al-Shifa Medical Complex, confirm the execution of ill and injured people.”
The Switzerland-based rights group also said some of the “victims’ decomposing bodies were found in several places, with some having been run over by Israeli bulldozers which left their bodies torn into pieces” and that Israeli forces had been using Palestinian civilians at Al-Shifa Hospital as human shields.
Since Israel waged its war against Gaza on October 7, at least 34,904 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 78,514 others wounded.