Facing “climate of impunity” Currently, the UN called on Tuesday April 23 for independent international investigations after the discovery of mass graves in the two main hospitals in the Gaza Strip. In a press releasethe United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said “horrified” by the destruction of the two largest hospital establishments in the enclave, the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza and the Nasser government medical complex in Khan Younes.
He therefore requested that “independent, effective and transparent investigations are carried out”adding that: “given the prevailing climate of impunity, international investigators should be involved in this process”. “Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law”he continued. “And intentionally killing civilians, detainees and others considered ‘hors de combat’ is a war crime. »
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been harshly targeted during the military operation carried out by the Israeli army in the Palestinian territory since the deadly attack perpetrated in Israel on October 7, 2023 by Hamas fighters from Gaza. According to Israel, the Palestinian Islamist movement used hospitals to carry out attacks and hide tunnels and weapons. Hamas has denied these accusations.
“The victims would have been buried deep in the ground and covered with waste”
On Monday, the civil defense of the Gaza Strip claimed to have exhumed in three days approximately 283 bodies of people killed and buried by Israeli forces in mass graves inside the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes. As for Al-Shifa hospital, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared in early April that it had been reduced to a ” empty shell “ littered with human remains from the latest Israeli operation.
The UN High Commission is trying to verify the number of deaths discovered at Nasser Hospital. “The victims would have been buried deep in the ground and covered with waste”, said a spokesperson for the high commission, Ravina Shamdasani, at a press briefing, adding that elderly people, women and the injured were among the dead. Others would have been “found with their hands tied and without clothing”.
She also declared that the figure put forward by the Israeli army of some two hundred people killed during the last assault on Al-Shifa hospital, between March 18 and early April, could be ” underrated “. To this day, she said, “we cannot corroborate the exact figures” people killed in the two hospitals: “This is why we insist on the need for international investigations. »