Israel-Hamas war: About 200 bodies exhumed from mass graves in Gaza hospital, according to Civil Defense

The number of remains discovered is increasing. Gaza civil defense officials told AFP on Monday that in the past three days they had exhumed about 200 bodies of people killed and buried by Israeli forces in mass graves on the grounds of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes. “Our teams continue to find bodies at Nasser’s medical complex, and the bodies of about 200 martyrs have been exhumed since Saturday,” said Mahmoud Bassal, a civil defense spokesman. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to AFP’s question.

Mohammed al-Mughayer, leader of the Gaza Civil Defense, told AFP that a total of 283 bodies had been found in the graves of Nasser Hospital. “So far we have discovered the buried bodies of 283 people killed in cold blood by the Israeli occupation army,” Ismail al-Tawabte, head of the government’s public relations department in power in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.

Target hospitals

Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have come under brutal attack during a military operation carried out by the Israeli army in the Palestinian territory following a deadly attack carried out in Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip. In response to the events of October 7, Israel launched a major military operation against the Gaza Strip with the stated goal of destroying Hamas there.

The Palestinian attack in Israel killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. About 250 people were also taken hostage in Gaza, with 129 people still there, of whom 34 are presumed dead, according to the Israeli army. Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip over the past six months have killed 34,151 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.