2 Mass graves discovered in Gaza Strip

The first mass grave was discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and the second was found in Beit Lahiya.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported nine bodies were found at al-Shifa Hospital before the health officials stopped digging, fearing that they could get targeted by the Israeli drones hovering in the skies above them.

But Gaza residents and medical crews told CNN fifteen bodies were recovered from around Al-Shifa Hospital following the withdrawal of the Israeli military from the area two weeks ago.

The uncovered bodies had not fully decomposed, which indicated that they had been killed recently.

Some of the people who had been killed and buried appear to have been patients at the hospital and had medical bandages and catheters attached to their bodies.

Family members of the deceased who identified the bodies confirmed that some of those killed were patients. They include an elderly man, a woman, and a man in his 20s.

Doctors and staff from the hospital stated that some people were killed outside the main gate (building number 80) of the hospital. Medical staff said they witnessed killings and burials.

In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, another mass grave containing about 20 decomposed bodies was discovered.

Residents said the bodies belong to the Al-Assaf family, and added they were killed during an incursion by the Israeli military forces in the area four months ago.

The Palestinian group Hamas announced the new mass grave discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza is “horrifying”.

The group stressed the mass grave includes “several decomposing bodies” that Israeli forces, using military bulldozers, hid under the rubble before withdrawing from the medical complex earlier this month.

Israeli forces have attacked and besieged the hospital several times since October 7, leaving it largely in ruins. Thousands of medical staff, patients, and displaced families were at the facility during the attacks, with witnesses saying hundreds lost their lives as a result.

The latest discovery indicates that there are “no limits” to what Israeli forces are willing to do, Hamas noted.

Their crimes are continuing because of the international community’s silence in the face of this “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, the group added.

“The series of ongoing violations, including the discovery of mass graves in al-Shifa, cases of execution, and the hundreds of bodies that remain under the rubble … are clear and well-documented war crimes,” it said.

Hamas called on the international community to bring those responsible to justice.