UN raises 'war crime' alert as 300+ bodies are found in Gaza mass graves

Reports of mass graves found in Gaza over the weekend at Nasser Hospital and Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in which Palestinian victims were found stripped naked with their hands tied, according to the UN, have prompted renewed concerns about possible war crimes by Israel amid its ongoing invasion of the besieged enclave.

"The intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat [someone who cannot fight back] is a war crime," UN rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday.

"Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes," Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, added.

The US has now sought information from Israel on "incredibly troubling" reports of mass graves in the Palestinian enclave where Israel's invasion from land, air and sea continued on day 200.

The UN outcry came after the recovery of hundreds of bodies "buried deep in the ground and covered with waste" at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the north.

UN rights chief noted that he was "horrified" by the destruction of Nasser and Al Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies there, according to a spokesperson.

At least 30 bodies of Palestinians were recovered from two mass graves at Al Shifa Hospital last week following a 14-day Israeli siege on the hospital, the largest in Gaza, in March. The hospital was largely reduced to ruins after Israel withdrew April 1.

At least 283 corpses were found in a mass grave at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after the Israeli army withdrew from the city April 7 following a four-month ground invasion, according to Gaza's civil defence agency.

Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN's human rights agency, said the rights organisation was raising the alarm because multiple bodies had been discovered.

"Some of them had their hands tied, which of course indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and these need to be subjected to further investigations," Shamdasani said.

She added that the UN human rights office was working on corroborating Palestinian officials' reports, including one that 30 bodies were found at Al Shifa.

Reuters news agency reporters verified emergency workers digging corpses out of the ground in the ruins of Nasser hospital.

'Unspeakable suffering'

Gaza's Civil Emergency Service said on Tuesday a total of 310 bodies had been found at one mass grave at Nasser so far and that two other graves had been identified, but not yet excavated.

Turk, who was represented by Shamdasani at a UN press briefing, also decried Israeli strikes on Gaza in recent days, which he said had killed mostly women and children.

Shamdasani said the UN human rights office had received reports that some of the victims in another Gaza area Nur Shams had been killed in apparent extrajudicial executions.

"The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed, this is beyond warfare," UN rights chief said in a statement.

The High Commissioner decried the "unspeakable suffering" caused by months of warfare and appealed once again for "the resulting misery and destruction, starvation and disease and the risk of wider conflict" to end.

UN has reiterated the call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages taken from Israel and those held in arbitrary detention, and the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid.

Israel has waged a brutal military invasion on the Palestinian territory since an October last year following cross-fence raid by Hamas resistance fighters. The hours-long raid and Israeli military's haphazard reaction resulted in the killings of more than 1,130 people, Israeli officials and local media say.

Palestinian fighters took more than 250 hostages and presently 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli army says are dead, some of them killed in indiscriminate Israeli strikes.

Hamas says its October 7 blitz on Israel that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

Israel has since then killed at least 34,200 Palestinians — 70 percent of them babies, women and children — and wounded more than 77,000 others, while thousands are feared buried under debris of homes annihilated in Israeli bombardment.

The Israeli war, now in its 200th day, has pushed 85 percent of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 percent 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, whichhas ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recently there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.