Mass graves in Gaza Strip – a witness to the Israeli occupation massacres

Occupied Al-Quds, (ST) – The courtyards of hospitals, schools, homes, and roads in Gaza Strip have turned into mass graves, and people are forced to bury their martyrs in them due to the difficulty of reaching the cemetries.

It is very difficult to move under the continuous Israeli bombardment, which has turned Gaza Strip into the largest open cemetery in the genocidal war it has been waging against the strip since the seventh of last October.

There are more than 120 mass graves  throughout Gaza Strip, the most recent of which was opened the day before yesterday in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Yunis, south of Gaza Strip, where it contained the bodies of 40 martyrs due to the inability to bury them outside the complex as a result of the siege and intense occupation bombing of its surrounding.

Khaled Al-Aqqad from the Jourat Al-Aqqad area in Khan Yunis told SANA reporter: What is happening in the city is genocide. He said that the occupation is bombing the city by land, sea and air. My brother was martyred yesterday in the vicinity of Al-Amal Hospital, and his body was transported to the Nasser Complex and buried in its courtyard with dozens of martyrs in a mass grave.

Al-Aqqad said that many residents of the area are missing amid fears that the occupation bulldozers crushed their bodies after they bulldozed 40 homes in the area and turned them into a pile of rubble.

Mahmoud Abu Zureiq pointed out that the daily increase in the number of martyrs leads them to be buried in mass graves, because there are no longer available graves to bury them.

In turn, Hassan Abu Sneida, spoke about some of the atrocities committed by the occupation in the Maghazi camp in the middle of Gaza Strip. He indicated that the occupation spread death in the camp and the bodies of the martyrs are everywhere, and no one can bury them, as more than 300 martyrs died in the camp within two weeks, and many were buried in mass graves.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that burying the martyrs in the courtyards of hospitals and health centers came as a result of the inability to preserve their bodies in the light of the outage of the power needed for the refrigerators for the dead, and the large numbers of martyrs that continuously arrive at hospitals.

President of the International Commission for Defending the Rights of the Palestinian People, Salah Abdel Ati confirmed that the occupation is committing genocide in Gaza Strip, and has carried out 2,213 massacres since the beginning of the aggression. He pointed out that the occupation’s targeting of cemeteries and preventing the burial of martyrs is a war crime and a flagrant violation of all international norms and conventions.

Abdel Ati pointed out that burying the martyrs in mass graves in hospitals, schools, and in the courtyards of homes due to the inability of medical teams and families to bury them in the cemeteries indicates the health catastrophe that hospitals are going through due to the brutal aggression.

He called on all international organizations, especially the United Nations and the Security Council, to break their silence and punish the the Israeli occupation for its ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.

Raghda Sawas