Gaza authorities claim mass graves found; Israel denies accusations

Palestinian authorities in Gaza said they found mass graves outside Al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Medical Complex on Saturday, April 20. However, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are calling the claims “completely baseless.”

Palestinian authorities said the graves containing the bodies of hundreds of Palestinian women and children were found after the IDF completed an operation on the hospitals.

A spokesperson for the United Nations said the organization was sifting through reports from the Hamas-run Gaza government media office. The reports alleged that 283 bodies were recovered and 42 have been identified.

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“Victims had reportedly been buried deep in the ground and covered with waste,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for Human Rights, said. “Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands, well, they were found with their hands tied and stripped of their clothes.”

She said if the reports are true, they would indicate serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws.

“And we call for independent, effective, transparent investigations into the deaths,” Shamdasani said. “Given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators. Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. And let’s be clear, the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime.”

However, the IDF rejected the accusation.

The Times of Israel reported the mass grave was not suddenly discovered, as it had been documented that Palestinians dug the graves outside the hospitals back in February before the IDF launched its hospital raids.

A spokesperson for the IDF told The Times of Israel that the operations carried out at the hospitals were “targeted” and part of an effort to locate hostages without harming the hospital’s patients or medical staff.

The Associated Press reported that the graves were built when Israeli forces were besieging the facility in March. The Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defense said that people who were not able to bury their dead in a cemetery dug graves in the hospital yards instead.

The Civil Defense in Gaza said most of the people had died during the hospital siege and others were killed when the IDF raided the hospitals in March.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department released its annual human rights report. The department claimed numerous war crimes have been committed by Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups since the war began.

More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.