War between Israel and Hamas: UN demands investigation into mass graves discovered in Gaza hospitals

The UN called on Tuesday for an international investigation into mass graves discovered at two main hospitals in the Gaza Strip, highlighting the need for an independent investigation in the face of the current “climate of impunity”.

The UN human rights office said it was “horrified” by Khan Younes’ destruction of Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, and the second largest hospital in the Palestinian territory, the Nasser Medical Complex.

In a statement, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called for “independent, effective and transparent investigations.” “Given the prevailing atmosphere of impunity, international investigators should be involved in this process,” he said.

“Hospitals are entitled to special protection under international humanitarian law,” he said. “And the deliberate killing of civilians, detainees and others believed to be out of commission is a war crime,” he added.

Hundreds of bodies exhumed

On Monday, Gaza Civil Defense said it had exhumed, in three days, about 200 bodies of people killed and buried by Israeli forces in mass graves on the grounds of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes.

As for al-Shifa Hospital, the World Health Organization (WHO) indicated in early April that the latest Israeli operation against it had reduced it to an “empty shell” littered with human remains.

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 in Israel on October 7 by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip.

According to Israel, the Palestinian Islamic movement used hospitals to carry out terrorist attacks, hide tunnels and hide weapons. Hamas has denied the accusations.

Victims ‘buried deep in the ground’

According to officials in the Gaza Strip, 283 bodies were discovered at Nasser Hospital, a figure the UN High Commission is trying to verify.

“The victims were reportedly buried deep in the ground and covered with debris,” OHCHR spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a briefing, adding that the dead included elderly people, women and the wounded. The rest were “found with their hands tied and without clothing.”

She also indicated that the figure put forward by the Israeli army of about 200 people killed during the latest assault on Al-Shifa hospital between March 18 and early April may be an “underestimate.” To date, she said, “we cannot confirm the exact numbers” of deaths in the two hospitals: “that is why we insist on the need for an international investigation.”