Bodies found in mass graves in the Gaza Strip may have been buried alive | middle East

On the sixth consecutive day of excavations in South Gaza, Palestinian Civil Defense says it has found 392 bodies in mass graves, including women and children. According to the group that provides humanitarian services in the Palestinian enclave, there are signs of torture and executions committed by the Israeli Army and a call was made for an investigation into war crimes in Gaza hospitals by the United Nations.

At least ten of the bodies found in mass graves in South Gaza had their hands tied and others still had medical tubes attached to them, indicating they may have been buried alive, said Mohammed al-Mughier, member of the Palestinian Civil Defense, at a press conference this Thursday. Also according to ​Mughier, who provided photographic and video evidence of several of his remains, some of the bodies found in the mass graves at Nasser Hospital belong to children.

According to the pan-Arab station Al-Jazeera, the head of the Civil defense in South Khan Younis, where Nasser Hospital is located, Yamen Abu Sulaiman, said that three separate mass graves were found on the premises of that hospital – one behind the morgue, another in front of the morgue and another near the dialysis building. In some of these places, this official explained, the bodies were piled up, suggesting that “executions had been carried out on the ground”.

White House calls for response to Israel and insists on ceasefire

Already on Wednesday, the White House had said it wanted “answers” about the mass graves found next to hospitals in Gaza. “We want answers,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. “We want to see this investigated thoroughly and transparently.”

On Thursday, a group of 18 countries, including the United States, published a letter calling for an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of the hostages. “We demand the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for more than 200 days. Among them are our own citizens [norte-americanos]. The fate of the hostages and civilian population in Gaza, which is protected by international law, is a cause for international concern”, read the letter sent by the White House, to which the newspaper The Guardian had access.

“The agreement on the table to release the hostages would bring about an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, which would facilitate a wave of necessary additional humanitarian assistance to be provided across the Gaza Strip and lead to a credible end to hostilities,” the document also reads.

In the last few hours, Israel has intensified air strikes on Rafah. To Reuters, doctors in the enclave reported five Israeli air strikes in the early hours of Thursday, which hit at least three houses, killing at least six people, including a local journalist.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet met “to discuss how to destroy the last vestiges, the last stronghold of Hamas battalions, in Rafah and elsewhere”, said the government spokesman, David Mencer.

Israeli warplanes also bombed the north of the country for the second day in a row on Wednesday. A senior Israeli defense official told the London agency that Israel was prepared to displace civilians before its attack on Rafah and that it had purchased 40,000 tents capable of housing 10 to 12 people each.

Satellite images of Mawasi, between Rafah, Khan Younis and the sea, an area of ​​sandy beaches and fields stretching only about 5km by 3km, show significant camps built in the last two weeks