Palestinians recover over 400 bodies in Gaza after Israeli troop withdrawal

By Ahmed Asmar

ANKARA (AA) - Palestinian civil defense teams have recovered the bodies of 409 people since Israeli troop withdrawal from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Younis, local authorities said on Tuesday.

The Israeli army withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital on April 1 following a two-week raid and from Khan Younis on April 7, leaving behind a massive trail of destruction.

The Palestinian Civil Defense Agency said that efforts were still ongoing to retrieve more bodies from both areas.

It appealed to the international community to provide specialized equipment and vehicles to help in the search for victims under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

Over 33,200 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 76,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war, now in its 186th day, 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 (ICJ), which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.