(CNN) — The United Nations called for an “independent, effective and transparent investigation” into the discovery of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals that were besieged and raided by the Israeli military this year.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement that he was “horrified” by the reported scenes at the Nasser and Al Shifa medical complexes in the besieged enclave.
“Given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators,” Türk said. “Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime,” she added, referring to non-combatants.
Gaza Civil Defense workers this week discovered a mass grave with at least 324 bodies in the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area.
Yamen Abu Suleiman, director of Civil Defense in Khan Younis, reported that some of the bodies had been found with their hands and feet tied, “and there were signs of executions on the ground. We do not know if they were buried alive or after being executed.” “Most of the bodies are decomposed.”
CNN cannot verify Suleiman’s claims or confirm the causes of death of the people whose bodies are being unearthed.
Earlier, a Khan Younis Civil Defense spokesman and head of the search mission, Raed Saqr, told CNN that they are searching for the bodies of another 400 people missing after the Israeli military left on April 7.
A CNN contributor who visited the site on Sunday said people buried the bodies of relatives who had died on the hospital grounds as a temporary measure in January. When they returned this month after the withdrawal of the Israeli army, they discovered that the bodies had been dug up and placed in at least one mass grave, according to the journalist. It is currently unknown how many bodies were initially buried there.
In response to a CNN question about the mass graves at the Nasser Medical Complex, the Israeli military said Tuesday that the “claim that the IDF buried Palestinian corpses is baseless.”
People and health workers dig up bodies found on Tuesday at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images).
“During the IDF operation in the Nasser Hospital area, in accordance with the effort to locate hostages and missing persons, corpses buried by Palestinians in the Nasser Hospital area were examined,” the Israeli military said, adding that the examination It was done “exclusively in places where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages.”
Once it was determined that the bodies did not belong to the Israeli hostages, “they were returned to their place,” he said.
Hamas-led militants kidnapped more than 250 people from Israel during their attack on the country on October 7. There are currently 133 Israeli hostages held captive, 35 of whom are believed to have died.
On Wednesday, CNN contacted the Israeli military for comment on Türk’s statements, to which he responded that he had nothing more to add to previous comments.
US says reports ‘incredibly worrying’
This month, Gaza health workers exhumed bodies from mass graves in and around another hospital, Al Shifa, after claiming that Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinians and left their bodies to decompose during the two-week siege of the complex. doctor.
Since Israeli forces withdrew on April 1, at least 381 bodies have been recovered from around the compound, Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said, adding that the total figure did not include those buried. within the hospital premises.
The US State Department expressed concern on Tuesday about the discovery of mass graves.
The reports are “incredibly concerning,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said. “And we are investigating this with the Government of Israel.”
“I’m not going to talk about the specific details, but it should not surprise you that we contact the Government of Israel at all levels, often many times, several times a day, at all hours,” he added.
CNN’s Abeer Salman, Ibrahim Dahman, Kareem Khadder and Tim Lister contributed to this report.
