Exhumed Graves in Al-Shifa Medical Complex Bear Witness to 15 Days of Siege and Destruction
(AWP) - The Israeli army withdrew from al-Shifa Medical Complex as abruptly as it stormed it, revealing the extent of the destruction to the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, where Palestinians say they have found loved one’s graves dug up and the bodies exhumed.
Footage of the Arab World Press (AWP) showed the dug-up graves in the hospital courtyard. The medical complex was founded in Gaza City in 1946 but has now been deemed non-operational by health authorities.
Hisham Abul-Oun, a Palestinian who lives near the hospital, said he came with others in search of bodies of relatives and neighbors killed when they were patients at the hospital, to bury them.
He explained, “We have lost loved ones and neighbors. We wanted to bury them but we came here and found all the graves had been dug up and the bodies exhumed. They did not even have mercy on the dead! Where are the human rights? This is the greatest sin!”
Officials in the Strip said hundreds of bodies of Palestinians killed in the months-long siege by the Israeli forces on the complex have been exhumed.
Abul-Oun said, “They destroyed the hospital and dug up the graves. There is nowhere in the hospital untouched by the shelling; not the buildings, not the cars, not anything. This place looks like it was hit by an earthquake.”
A spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense authority in Gaza said the siege on al-Shifa Hospital is one of the ugliest and most tragic scenes since October 7, adding that “a large healthcare system was completely destroyed.”
Palestine TV reported that the buildings of al-Shifa Complex had been burnt down and the facility is fully out of service.
The Director of the government media office in Gaza, Ismail al-Thawabteh, spoke of 400 Palestinians killed in and around al-Shifa Medical Complex during the siege, in addition to hundreds being detained.
He described the incidents at al-Shifa Complex as “a crime against humanity, against international law and all human rights conventions.”
Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) said the incidents at al-Shifa Complex were “an appalling crime,” and urged the international community and the UN to urgently intervene and enter Gaza to assess the consequences.
It also called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the events at al-Shifa.