The bodies of Palestinians found in the Gaza Strip were buried in a mass grave not by Israeli soldiers, but by Palestinians, the Israeli embassy in Geneva announced on Tuesday.
“The claim that [Izraēlas Aizsardzības spēki] burying Palestinian corpses is unjustified,” the embassy said in a statement.
Israeli soldiers only inspected the bodies in this grave looking for Israeli hostages, the dignity of the dead was respected and the Palestinian bodies were put back in the same place, the embassy explained.
“The search was conducted carefully and only in areas where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages,” the embassy said.
Palestinian Civil Defense units in the Gaza Strip reported on Monday that a mass grave containing 283 bodies had been found near Nasser Hospital in the city of Han Younis.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, citing civil protection information, said that some of the bodies had their hands tied.
Turk said on Tuesday that he was “horrified” by news of mass graves found near hospitals in the Gaza Strip and called for an independent investigation into the causes of the deaths.
In recent weeks, there have also been reports of corpses found in the Al-Shif hospital complex in Gaza City.
Tags: Palestinian mass grave Gaza Strip Israel denies involvement
