The Israeli army on Tuesday denied “baseless” Palestinian accusations that it had buried the bodies of Palestinians in mass graves on the premises of a hospital in the Gaza Strip, saying it had dug up and then reburied bodies in search of hostages, reports AFP and dpa, quoted by Agerpres.
“Allegations that the Israeli army buried bodies of Palestinians are baseless,” the Israeli army said.
“During its operation in the area of the Nasser hospital” in the city of Khan Younis, “in an attempt to locate hostages and missing persons, bodies buried by Palestinians were examined (…) cautiously and only in places where information indicated the possible presence of hostages” , explained the army, assuring that it “respected the dignity of the deceased”.
“The examined bodies that were not those of the hostages were taken to their place,” the army added.
The UN on Tuesday called for an international investigation into the mass graves discovered in the two main hospitals in the Gaza Strip, underlining the need for an independent investigation in the face of the current “climate of impunity”, AFP and Reuters note.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights declared itself “horrified” by the destruction of the two largest hospitals in the Gaza Strip, al-Shifa hospital and the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis. In a statement, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, called for “independent, effective and transparent investigations to be carried out”.
A civil defense official in the Gaza Strip said on Tuesday that his teams had discovered the bodies of around 340 people in mass graves in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis since Saturday. Some bodies had their hands tied, he added.
Tags: Israeli army denies burying Palestinians hospital Gaza
