Amnesty: Gaza mass graves show need for independent investigations
Erika Guevara Rosas, senior official at the NGO Amnesty International, has issued a statement on the discovery of mass graves holding hundreds of Palestinian bodies in the Gaza Strip.
More than 300 bodies have been uncovered so far from Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis after Israeli forces withdrew on April 7. The UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday said more bodies were found at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest health facility, which the rights body said was “an empty shell” after a two-week Israeli siege ended there on April 1.
“The harrowing discovery of these mass graves underscores the urgency of ensuring immediate access for human rights investigators, including forensic experts, to the occupied Gaza Strip to ensure that evidence is preserved”, the Amnesty official said.
“Lack of access for human rights investigators to Gaza has hampered effective investigations into the full scale of the human rights violations and crimes under international law committed over the past six months, allowing for the documentation of just a tiny fraction of these abuses,” she added.
Euro-Med calls for international probe into mass graves found in Gaza
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has joined numerous rights groups and nations in calling for an independent investigation into the discovery of dozens of mass graves in Gaza. It said its team members on the ground had witnessed the exhumation of hundreds of bodies found in the vicinity of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital and saw victims “handcuffed … who were executed”.
In a statement, Euro-Med said the high number of bodies that have been recovered is “alarming, and requires urgent international action, including the formation of an independent international investigation committee”.
Many of those who lost their lives were subjected to “premeditated murder as well as arbitrary and extrajudicial executions while they were detained and handcuffed”, it added.
UN spokesperson says ‘all parties’ must agree to mass graves investigation
The deputy spokesperson for the head of the UN, Farhan Haq, says “all of the parties” who have the power to allow investigators access into Gaza must agree to any potential independent probe into the mass graves discovered in the vicinity of Gaza’s two largest hospitals.
More than 300 bodies have been recovered so far from mass graves at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, and more than 380 bodies have been recovered from Gaza City’s al-Shifa Medical Complex, according to civil defence crews. International outcry and demands from an independent probe are quickly growing.
“For any investigations to be effective, all of the parties in the area that control access sufficient to conduct investigations would need to agree to it,” Haq told Al Jazeera, when questioned at a press briefing by our reporter Gabriel Elizondo. This means Israel, which has been widely accused of being responsible for the mass graves, must agree to cooperate with the investigation.
“There’s always difficulties in terms of places where conflict has occurred, to get the access we need, but ultimately for any investigation to be meaningful, you need that access,” Haq said. Haq reiterated that an “independent, effective and transparent investigation” into the killings at Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals must be conducted.
Good luck with that. Asking the one that committed the war crimes to cooperate with the investigation... Has Israel cooperated with any investigations since or before October 7th? They don't allow international investigators to look into what happened on Oct 7, they won't allow investigating their own crimes either.
The UN needs a peacekeeping force in Gaza to deter the IDF. It's clear Israel will not cooperate with anything until the USA pulls out. The US doesn't want an independent investigation either, they're fine asking Israel to cook up some explanation.
