Israeli tanks shell decomposed bodies of Palestinians in Khan Younis

By Hosni Nadim

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The Israeli army's inhumane actions continue in the Gaza Strip, this time disrespecting unburied decomposed bodies of Palestinians in the southern Khan Younis city, preventing people from collecting them from the rubble, eyewitnesses told Anadolu on Wednesday.

Eyewitnesses said some Palestinians returned to the areas where Israeli forces had withdrawn to find the bodies of their loved ones, including children and women who were attempting to flee from the city of Khan Younis to Rafah in the far south but were targeted by Israeli tanks.

They said ambulances transported some of these bodies to the Nasser Medical Complex in the city center, but when Israeli tanks opened fire on everyone in the area, the paramedics were forced to flee.

Some of the bodies have begun to decompose, and parts have been eaten by cats and dogs, they said.

Though the Israeli army partially withdrew from the west of Khan Younis city following heavy bombardment on Monday that killed dozens of Palestinians and injured scores more, eyewitnesses said Israeli tanks continued to disrespect the dead, which the Palestinian Presidency described the act as "war crimes."

On Tuesday, the Palestinian presidency issued a statement calling what is going on in Khan Younis a "war crime," urging international intervention to prevent the residents from being displaced to Rafah.

"We went to the Security Council to hold an emergency and urgent meeting to address this serious crime," said the statement, as quoted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The presidency warned "of the danger of the Israeli occupation authorities asking the people of Khan Younis to leave their places of residence towards Rafah," only to attack them.

The majority of people in Khan Younis "were displaced from northern and central Gaza as a result of the ongoing aggression."

On Monday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said Palestinians were forced to bury 40 of their dead in a mass grave in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex due to their inability to go to the cemeteries owing to intense Israeli bombing.

Ministry's spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement that "the number of serious injuries arrived at Nasser Medical Complex as a result of the Israeli targeting of shelter centers in western Khan Younis exceeds the capacity of the hospital's operating rooms and intensive care."

On Tuesday, the Israeli army claimed to have “completed the encirclement” of Khan Younis city.

The Israeli army said in a statement: “Over the last twenty-four hours, the 98th Division carried out a large-scale attack in Khan Younis.”

Earlier on Wednesday morning, the government media office in Gaza said the Israeli army is still besieging the displaced people at Al-Aqsa University in Khan Younis to forcibly evacuate them to Rafah.

Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, killing more than 25,000 people. About 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while more than half of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio