Yossi Schwartz, ISL – RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 04.05.2024
“The idea that Israel carried out mass summary executions and covered them up in mass graves is preposterous. There is not only no evidence connecting Israel to such an act, but the IDF, with all of the criticism, has shown unprecedented openness to international media to see and learn what it is doing in Gaza. The real problem is that, according to The Jerusalem Post’s findings to date, it seems that Israel and the IDF did not adequately vet and calibrate its policy of searching for dead Israeli hostages in Palestinian graves with international law and perceptions abroad of acceptable conduct”.[i]
Put simply, international law permits exhuming bodies in certain circumstances, such as Israel’s search for dead Israeli hostages. However, the IDF did not always follow the nuances of the law or present its adherence to those nuances to the world in a way that would promote a belief in Israeli good faith”[ii].
So, what happened, according to the Zionists known as liars? The argument is:
“There are clear Palestinian reports that the Palestinians themselves initially dug the graves in question. The problem, it seems, is that too many bodies were later found in the mass graves after Israeli operations, or sometimes specific bodies said to have been buried alone next to a particular tree were later reburied in mass graves. In other words, someone added bodies to the graves dug initially by the Palestinians, and that someone might sometimes have been the IDF. The IDF has not denied this possibility to the Post. There are indications that Israel (or disparate Palestinian groups) might have added dead Palestinian bodies to the mass graves after opening graves to search for Jewish bodies.”[iii]
But the Jerusalem Post admitted that there was no evidence indicating that an Israeli body was among the dead bodies.
“If there were specific intelligence, such as a confession by a captured Hamas member, that a particular hostage was reburied in a specific mass grave, there would likely be no international law problem with a targeted exhumation of part of a preexisting mass grave. If There were 150 Palestinian bodies buried in the grave, Israel was only searching for one hostage, and the intelligence was uncertain. Could Israel legally exhume under those circumstances? Maybe. But it would be debatable, so a very clear procedure should have been written, containing a legal opinion for someone to examine if questions about the procedure subsequently arose. Best of all, a third-party observer should have been involved and could have testified afterward about how humane Israel was. Instead, the IDF issued laconic standard written statements commending its humanity with no backup. Not that the Post has evidence that the IDF was not generally humane, and it probably was, but the IDF left no real paper trail to defend itself from skeptical critics.”[iv]
This attempt to cover up for such a crime is no more than a chain of lies from A to Z. First of all, it was not by chance that no foreign reporters saw what the army did.
“Accusations about Israeli censorship of the media went mainstream in the US recently when the New York Times published an opinion piece headlined: The Israeli Censorship Regime is Growing. That Needs to Stop. In the piece, Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), wrote: “The high rate of journalists’ deaths and arrests, including a slew in the West Bank; laws allowing its government to shut down foreign news outlets deemed a security risk, which the prime minister has explicitly threatened to use against Al Jazeera; and its refusal to permit foreign journalists independent access to Gaza all speak to a leadership that is deliberately restricting press freedom. That is the hallmark of a dictatorship, not a democracy.”[v]
Second of all, there was no indication that an Israeli body could be among the dead, so why open the grave? In addition, why open other graves or graves and add bodies?
According to CNN: “Authorities in Gaza have concluded their search of mass graves at a hospital in the south of the strip and said they have uncovered a total of 392 bodies, including some still wearing surgical gowns. Speaking at a Thursday news conference, an official from the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza said workers had identified 165 bodies at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.
They are still examining the remaining 227 bodies to determine their identities, Mohammed Al Mighayyer said at the news conference in Rafah. “We found three mass graves, the first in front of the morgue, the second behind the morgue, and the third north of the dialysis building,” he added. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said any suggestion that it had buried Palestinian bodies in mass graves was false and that a grave at the Nasser complex was dug by Palestinians in Gaza some months ago.The Gaza Civil Defense acknowledged that around 100 bodies were buried in graves at the Nasser hospital before the IDF operation there”[vi].
If the Zionist army removed bodies from another grave, why are there three mass graves? In addition “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.”[vii]
According to Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hani Mahmoud, those being retrieved from the grave included women, children, patients, and medical staff. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman with the UN’s human rights office, said some of the bodies found at the Khan Younis hospital were “found with their hands tied and stripped of their clothes…. The UN called for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves uncovered at the two hospitals. Shamdasani called for an independent and transparent investigation into the deaths and bodies found, saying “given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators.”[viii]
We believe that the occupation buried alive at least 20 people at the Nasser Medical Complex,” Mr. Abu Suleiman said, adding that some bodies bore signs of mutilation and torture. Palestinians search for loved ones among mass graves at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital. “There are cases of field execution of some patients while undergoing surgeries and wearing surgical gowns,” his team said at a press conference.
Mr. Abu Suleiman said bodies were buried about three meters deep in plastic bags, which caused them to decompose more quickly. “The occupation deliberately concealed evidence of its crimes in the Nasser Complex by changing the plastic shrouds more than once,” he said, without further details. Civil defense member Mohammed Mughier said the bodies needed to be forensically examined to determine if they were alive when they were buried. Ten bodies were found with medical tubes attached, he added.”[ix]
The mass grave in Nasser Hospital is not the first one: “After the Zionist army left Al al-Shifa hospital, which suffered a devastating raid that left most of the complex in ruins, health officials discovered nine bodies before halting recovery operations from fear of being targeted by Israeli drones that hovered in the skies above them as they were digging, the Qatari news outlet stated. According to the report, some of the recovered bodies — which had not fully decomposed, indicating they were killed recently — appear to have been patients at the hospital; they still had medical bandages and catheters attached to them. Medical staff and family members identifying the bodies confirmed this”[x].
During the war of 1967, the Zionist army attacked an American ship, the Liberty. It allegedly committed a war crime by slaughtering Egyptian prisoners of war in the city of El Arish in the northern Sinai. Bamford argued in his 2001 book, “Body of Secrets,” that the USS Liberty’s proximity to the Sinai, and its ability to intercept Israel’s motives and activities during the Six-Day War, might have prompted Israel’s attack on the vessel.”[xi]
“Why did Israel try to sink a naval vessel of its benefactor and ally? Most likely because ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts flatly contradicted Israel’s claim, made at the war’s beginning on 5 June, that Egypt had attacked Israel and that Israel’s massive air assault on three Arab nations was in retaliation. Israel began the war with a devastating, Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack that caught the Arabs in bed and destroyed their entire air forces”[xii].
If Israel can attack an American ship, is it difficult to know what it is in the two hospitals in Gaza?
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-799430
[ii] Ibid
[iii] Ibid
[iv] Ibid
[v] https://theconversation.com/how-israel-continues-to-censor-journalists-covering-the-war-in-gaza-228241
[vi]https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/middleeast/gaza-400-bodies-mass-grave-hospital-intl/index.html
[vii] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/24/uncovering-of-mass-grave-at-gazas-nasser-hospital-what-you-need-to-know
[viii] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/24/uncovering-of-mass-grave-at-gazas-nasser-hospital-what-you-need-to-know
[ix] https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/04/25/at-least-20-palestinians-feared-buried-alive-at-gazas-nasser-hospital-civil-defence-says/
[x] https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1410458/mass-graves-discovered-in-northern-gaza-al-shifa-hospital.html
[xi]https://theintercept.com/2017/06/06/fifty-years-later-nsa-keeps-details-of-israels-uss-liberty-attack-secret/
[xii] Eric S. Margolis The USS Liberty – America’s Most Shameful Secret