War in Gaza: What is known about the mass graves found in hospital

In the chaos of the war in Gaza, many are searching for loved ones who were last seen alive at the Nasser hospital complex in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Palestinian enclave.

Families know missing relatives were there but lost contact when Israeli forces took control of the medical center.

The Palestinian Civil Defense accuses the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of killing hundreds of Palestinians in the wider Khan Younis area and then bringing their bodies to the Nasser Medical Complex. However, they admit that some graves may have been dug before this period.

The IDF took control of the complex after seizing the region between February 15 and 22, and again between March 26 and April 7.

Palestinian authorities said they had exhumed 283 bodies in Nasser, some with their hands tied. It is unclear how the buried people died or when their bodies were placed in graves.

The UN Human Rights chief said he was “horrified” by the graves and the destruction of the Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals in Gaza. Volker Türk called for independent investigations into the deaths.

Israel’s military said accusations that it was they who buried the bodies there were “unfounded.”

Israeli hostages detained by Hamas and now released said they were held at Nasser Hospital for long periods during their time in captivity.

BBC News Arabic spoke to Um Muhammad Zidan – a mother looking for her son, Nabil. She went to the mass grave in search of her son’s remains.

She said she walked with heavy steps and with a broken soul, carrying in her hands a bouquet of roses and two bottles of perfume and eucalyptus oil.

She added that she was desperately searching for her son’s body to sprinkle flowers and perfume on it – as she would at a wedding – because she had promised before the war that she would marry him off and perform a grand wedding ceremony for him.

The BBC News Arabic forensic team researched the available evidence to try to understand what happened at Nasser Hospital.

The presence of bodies at the scene https://twitter.com/tamerqdh/status/1781971229596901745, dated April 21. The images show the Palestinian Civil Defense finding graves and trying to identify the bodies.

The characteristics of the site correspond to those shown in a video published on January 25, which reveals Palestinian civilians burying more than 70 bodies in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital.

The buildings match those visible in the April 21 footage.

Claims of a mass grave are supported by an eyewitness who told the BBC: “I saw skulls buried in the ground, severed hands and legs and decomposing bodies. The smell was terrible.”

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, states that on the first day around 80 bodies were found, 30 of which were identified due to their obvious characteristics. He says it was not possible to identify the rest because they were buried on different dates and were decomposing.

Basal says that when Israeli forces stormed the hospital, they dug graves to search for the bodies of Israeli hostages. He adds that soldiers reburied the bodies alongside others killed during the attack.

In a statement to the BBC, IDF sources denied responsibility: “The allegation that the IDF buried Palestinian bodies is unfounded and without reason.”

The IDF added: “During the IDF operation in the Nasser Hospital area, amid the effort to locate hostages and missing persons, corpses buried by Palestinians in the hospital area were examined…”

“The examined bodies, which did not belong to Israeli hostages, were returned to their place.”

The statements by the Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson align with the Israeli narrative of what occurred.

However, this does not exclude the possibility that additional graves were added when Israeli forces invaded the hospital.

The mass graves are located in the same area where Palestinian civilians, families and doctors have buried dozens of their colleagues in recent months.

Scenes of Palestinian civilians burying the bodies of other Palestinians are shown in other videos dating back to January 28. In them, about 30 people were buried.

On February 3, another collection of bodies was buried in a location six meters from the previous one, a scene also shown in the January 28 video.

Mahmoud Basal of the Palestinian Defense Forces told the BBC that Palestinians buried their own relatives and unidentified bodies in these hospitals. He said these people were killed during what he called the “Israeli siege” of Khan Yunis.

On January 22, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry said dozens of people had been killed or injured west of Khan Younis.

The Ministry said people were forced to bury 40 bodies inside the Nasser Hospital premises because it was too unsafe to do so outside.

In one photograph, a partially decomposed body appears tied up, indicating that it may belong to one of the individuals detained by Israeli forces.

In response to the BBC, the Israeli Army stated that the operation was carried out “in a targeted manner, without causing harm to the hospital, patients or medical personnel”.

However, three medical staff told the BBC last month that they were humiliated, beaten, doused with cold water and forced to kneel for hours after being detained during an operation.

The BBC obtained video provided by an eyewitness inside Nasser Hospital, showing Israeli soldiers moving beds containing people whose bound hands were raised above their heads.

This is corroborated by separate images released by the Israeli Army, where people can be seen lying on hospital beds with their hands tied in a similar way.

We do not know who these individuals are or what happened to them after these recordings were made.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the government press office in Gaza, said Israeli soldiers stripped dozens of patients, displaced people and medical personnel naked before “executing” them.

He added that “headless corpses and bodies without skin were found in the Nasser Complex, and some of them had their organs stolen.” He called for an international investigation.

Palestinian doctor Ahmed Abu Mustafa from Nasser Hospital told the BBC that they found limbless bodies at the scene. He stated that one of them belonged to a member of the hospital’s medical team, something they were able to identify by the uniform he was wearing. He was handcuffed and his features were hidden, he said.

The IDF has denied accusations about the atrocities, saying its forces detained “around 200 terrorists who were in the hospital” during the attack, and that they found ammunition as well as unused medicine intended for the Israeli hostages.

We presented our collection of videos and images to Dr. Hassanein Al-Tayyer, Forensic Medicine consultant and professor at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. He confirmed having observed bodies in various stages of decomposition in the videos, indicating different times of burial.

Al-Tayyer’s opinion, based on what he saw in the videos and images, is that the injuries and cuts on the bodies visible in the videos could not have been inflicted by organ removal, but rather by heavy weapons.

He said it is common for bombings of houses or cars to turn bodies into fragments, with body parts potentially lost among the rubble.

A photo of a decapitated body circulated on social media along with claims that it was one of the bodies recovered from the recently discovered mass graves.

However, Al-Tayyer states that the condition of the corpse and the visible blood indicate that the photograph must not have been taken more than a day after death.

Therefore, this contradicts the idea that it was the body of someone killed before the Israeli withdrawal on April 7th.

A spokeswoman for the UN Human Rights Office said it is currently working to corroborate reports from Palestinian authorities that 283 bodies were found on the grounds of Nasser Hospital, including 42 that have been identified.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for independent, effective and transparent investigations into the deaths, adding: “Given the climate of impunity that prevails, this should include international investigators.”

“Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hours of combat [não participam nas hostilidades] It’s a war crime.”

The US State Department also expressed concern, saying the reports were “incredibly concerning.”

Additional production by Ghada Nassef