ISRAEL EXECUTES 400 PALESTINIANS AT GAZA’S AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL: OFFICIAL

A mass grave is found in the courtyard of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on 16 April, 2024 [Hamza Qraiqea/Anadolu Agency]

Tue 16 April 2024:

The Gaza Government Media Office announced on Monday that the Israeli army has executed 400 Palestinians at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, adding that at least nine bodies were discovered in the hospital courtyard.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza Government Media Office, confirmed the bodies were victims of the Israeli army, adding that some were patients receiving treatment in the hospital and: “Some of the bodies still had medical equipment attached to them.”

For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza appealed to the relevant institutions to establish field hospitals in Gaza City and Northern Gaza to provide healthcare services to people after the Israeli army put Al-Shifa Hospital and many other hospitals entirely out of service.

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, reported from al-Shifa Hospital, said nine bodies were found before the health officials stopped digging, fearing that they could get targeted by the Israeli drones hovering in the skies above them.

The uncovered bodies had not fully decomposed, which indicated that they had been killed recently.

Some of the people who had been killed and buried appear to have been patients at the hospital and had medical bandages and catheters attached to their bodies.

Family members of the deceased who identified the bodies confirmed that some of those killed were patients. They include an elderly man, a woman, and a man in his 20s.

Doctors and staff from the hospital said that some people were killed outside the main gate (building number 80) of the hospital. Medical staff said they witnessed killings and burials.

In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, another mass grave containing about 20 decomposed bodies was discovered.

Residents said the bodies belong to the Al-Assaf family, and said they were killed during an incursion by the Israeli military forces in the area four months ago.

Hamas decries Israeli ‘war crimes’ at al-Shifa Hospital as mass grave found

The Palestinian group said the new mass grave discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza is “horrifying”.

The group said the mass grave includes “several decomposing bodies” that Israeli forces, using military bulldozers, hid under the rubble before withdrawing from the medical complex earlier this month.

Israeli forces have attacked and besieged the hospital several times since October 7, leaving it largely in ruins. Thousands of medical staff, patients, and displaced families were at the facility during the attacks, with witnesses saying hundreds lost their lives as a result.

The latest discovery indicates that there are “no limits” to what Israeli forces are willing to do, Hamas said.

Their crimes are continuing because of the international community’s silence in the face of this “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, the group added.

“The series of ongoing violations, including the discovery of mass graves in al-Shifa, cases of execution, and the hundreds of bodies that remain under the rubble … are clear and well-documented war crimes,” it said.

Hamas called on the international community to bring those responsible to justice.