Over 150 bodies were found in the city of Khan Yunis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the Civil Defense announced in a statement on Sunday.
According to Al-Jazeera, citing the Civil Defense, there are approximately 2,000 Palestinians who have gone missing following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from several areas in Gaza. It remains unclear whether they have been detained or buried clandestinely.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense, told Al-Jazeera that the bodies were found in a mass grave within the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.
These individuals, belonging to various groups and age ranges, were killed by the Israeli military during their incursion into the Nasser complex, with a significant number being women and children.
More than 150 bodies were recovered from a mass grave in the Khan Yunis after the occupation’s withdrawal.
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Search and recovery operations are ongoing to locate the remaining bodies, as many are still within the complex.
Basal highlighted that Israeli forces bulldozed numerous bodies and buried them before withdrawing from Gaza.
Basal also emphasized the systematic and deliberate use of forced disappearance by the Israeli occupation forces against the people of Gaza.
He cited instances where Palestinians were granted temporary security before being killed minutes later, with many victims being stripped naked before their deaths.
Describing the situation in Gaza as ethnic cleansing carried out by Israeli forces, Basal stressed that such atrocities have no precedent in human history.
He also called on international institutions to investigate the use of unconventional weapons, noting instances where bodies evaporated and turned into ashes.
Palestinian Civil Defence uncovers 50 Palestinians' bodies from a mass grave at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, two weeks after Israeli forces withdrew from the area pic.twitter.com/xkcQ2qvvW0
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Gaza Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 34,049 Palestinians have been killed, and 76,901 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
GAZA LIVE BLOG: Mass Grave in Khan Yunis – Massacre in Rafah – West Bank under Attack – Day 198
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(PC, AJA)
