Over 280 bodies found in mass grave at hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis

By Anadolu staff

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Health workers have uncovered at least 283 bodies of people from a mass grave at the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, Gaza’s civil defense agency said Monday.

“Civil defense crews retrieved 73 more bodies from the mass grave, bringing the total figure to 283 bodies since Saturday,” the agency said in a statement.

According to the statement, civil defense crews are still searching for more bodies in the grave.

A mass grave was found in the hospital’s courtyard on Saturday after the Israeli army withdrew from the city on April 7 following a 4-month ground offensive.

According to Ismail al-Thawabteh of Gaza’s government media office, around 700 people have been unaccounted for since the Israeli army withdrawal from the city.

"We believe that there are hundreds of bodies still missing after being executed by the Israeli occupation and buried in mass graves,'' he told Anadolu.

Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border Hamas attack on Oct. 7 last year, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

At least 34,151 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,00 others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul