Image Credits - Al Jazeera
Palestinian civil defence crews have uncovered a mass grave containing at least 180 bodies inside the bombed-out Nasser Medical Complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, as reported by Al Jazeera.
The grim discovery was made after Israeli forces withdrew earlier this month from Khan Younis following over six months of intense bombardment and bloody urban warfare that has left large swaths of the city in ruins.
“In the hospital courtyard, civil defence members and paramedics have retrieved 180 bodies buried in this mass grave by the Israeli military. The bodies include elderly women, children and young men,” they reported from the devastated city.
Images from the site showed workers wearing protective gear carefully exhuming the decomposed remains from a dusty pit in the medical complex’s courtyard. The victims’ identities remain unknown.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza called the mass grave evidence of suspected “war crimes” by Israeli forces and demanded an independent international investigation. Israel’s military has not commented on the discovery.
The finding adds to the immense human toll of the over half-year Israeli offensive in Gaza aimed at quelling rocket fire into Israel. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed and thousands more injured, according to Gaza health officials. Whole neighbourhoods have been flattened.
Peace talks between Israel and Palestinian factions have been moribund for years amid dimming prospects for a two-state solution to the long-running conflict. The latest hostilities in Gaza have sparked widespread condemnation and diplomatic efforts to establish a ceasefire have so far proved fruitless.